


Integrate and Synthesize

by Parsonsaj



Series: Trappist-1 [2]
Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Camping, Canon Continuation, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Science, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gang Violence, Gen, Ghost Hunting, IT'S FINALLY HERE, Magical Girls, Moral Dilemmas, Science Fiction, Seattle, Sexuality Crisis, Someone help these kids, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, Time Travel, Trappist-1, Vigilantism, fashion-based intrigue, is it still gay panic if they are panicking for other reasons, super powers, universe expansion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 149,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23884825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parsonsaj/pseuds/Parsonsaj
Summary: Rory was hoping the universe would cut them some slack after Seattle's previous crisis left them with a whole lot of powers and a lot less confusion about where they came from. But the appearance of gangbangers in the city calls into question everything Rory knows about being a soldier. Where does the jurisdiction of a Sailor Soldier end? Can she really stand by as the beautiful palette of the city she loves is dinged by violence and fear? Or will getting involved do more harm than good?Meanwhile, two conspirators operate a sinister machine whose purpose is realized as the lights in the city go out. Can the Sailor Soldiers defend the treasure they've been entrusted to protect?And who are these mysterious strangers?Man, high school shouldn't have to be this complicated.The sequel to "And We Shall Purify."
Series: Trappist-1 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1377007
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back! I'm super excited to get into this, and I hope you enjoy!  
> Reading part one, "And We Shall Purify," is highly recommended.

_Previously, in the final moments of "And We Shall Purify"..._

_"From opposite ends of the city, two moving vans pulled into the Seattle area. In the eastern van, a young woman navigated her way through the new streets, her companion half-asleep in the passenger seat. “We’re almost there,” she hushed as the girl stirred, emerging from the cocoon of her blanket against the car door. She took a deep breath—it had been a long time since she had felt this hopeful._

_The news reports in this area were almost too convenient to be true, but she was willing to take the gamble._

_She peered over into the other seat as they came to a light. “I really think this could be it. What do you think?”"_

_______

From opposite ends of the city, two moving vans pulled into the Seattle area. The second just happened to be temporally distanced from the first by three hours.

The western van chugged along the backroads of the city, traversing the neighborhoods where the streetlights only half worked and the residents knew better than to be out after dark. The driver kept his focus on the road, too used to this shit to be distracted by the metallic clunk of their merchandise in the back of the van.

“Harlo’s gonna’ kill us.” The rookie in the seat beside him lounged back in his seat. He was trying to be cool, but Vincent could see his gaze flicking nervously along the street, as if the man was going pull up out of the shadows right then and gank them both for catching the 6:00 PM rush out of Spokane. Held them up for hours.

“Harlo’s not going to do shit,” Vincent narrowed his eyes, fingers flicking over the wheel as he turned them down into the part of town they were meant to have been in, if they hadn’t been held up. “The man needs runners, and he ain’t gonna get his hands dirty. He can hold tight.”

The rookie, Tray or something, twisted the leather of the door handle, the material squeaking noisily. “Whatever you say, man. I ain’t about this shit.”

A grin tugged at his lips. This man looked like he was going to wet himself. “You chickening out? Don’t let Harlo know you ain’t in it. You’ll make yourself a liability.”

“I don’t know, man.” The man’s knee bounced, shaking the van. “The stash was one thing, but this isn’t what I signed up for. This shit is serious.”

Vincent shook his head. “Then I guess you better get serious.”

It was well into the dark when they pulled up to the building, climbing out and slamming the van doors behind them. The sky burned orange up above, but the sun was almost gone. They needed to go ahead and get this shit inside before anyone started wondering what two guys with prison tats were hanging out at an abandoned lot.

Vincent glanced around before jamming the key in the lock. Tray stuck tight behind him with a duffle bag, and as soon as he could see the metal glinting inside the guy began stuffing the bag full. They had to figure out a better way to do this shit. This looked sketchy as fuck.

Tray rounded suddenly, yelping “Hey,” as something jostled a stray trash can behind them.

The man’s itchy trigger finger was reaching before Vincent could stop him. “Watch it,” he barked as a sharp _bang_ racketed out—

__

From under her covers, the moonlight fighting its way into her bedroom, Rory jolted awake.

**Episode 1: Two Plains, Temporally Distanced by an Approximate Time**

Rory blinked into the darkness, heart pounding. The atmosphere had the kind of liminal weirdness of an empty airport or a hospital, like being between two places. For a minute, she wasn’t sure if she was actually awake or not.

She stayed cocooned on her side until she knew the adrenaline making her body shake was real. She stared around the room, trying to figure out what had woken her. She felt the tell-tale shift of the covers near her ankles, and she sat up as Celene padded up the comforter.

The cat’s soft “voice” broke the silence of the bedroom. “What on earth was that?”

Rory’s phone buzzed. She reached over, grabbing it where it’s box of light burst upward from the nightstand. Nerves keyed-up, she unlocked it, reading the message. It was from Narma.

_did you hear that shit just now too?_

_I guess_

_something woke me up_

_Not really awake_

_freaking gunshots_

The two words blared up from the screen at her, before her stomach sunk like a stone. She groaned, throwing her arm over her face as she fell back into her pillows. She’d thought it had gotten too quiet, not counting the chaos the pithos had set the city under.

Celene wrinkled her little whiskers, standing too close to her head. “What is it?”

Her door creaked. Celene shot under the covers at at least mach 2, particles of fur peppering the air as Rory’s mama filled up the doorway.

“You okay, baby?” Even in full shadow, she could still make out the wrinkle of concern on her mother’s face.

She answered the way she had grown used to over many years, the response tailored to A. let her mother know she was used to the sound, and didn’t need to be worried over, and B. that settling them in the only neighborhood they could do for hadn’t ruined their lives, turning her into a stone cold hoodlum because gunshots could maybe sometimes be construed as a norm for her. “Jus’ loud.” She rubbed her eye for good measure. “You gonna be able to sleep?”

Mama’s shoulders deflated. “Don’t you worry about me. You just try to get some rest.”

It wasn’t a real question, because they both knew she was going to be up all night fretting over where her brother was at, even thought he was away at community college and not in the area.

They said “I love you” and Mama closed the door again. Celene emerged from her cave in the covers, demanding to know what was happening.

Rory glanced back to her phone. She peered over the last message Narma had sent over as she blearily explained the concept of an earth human gang.

_Those lunatics had better not be starting_

_up this shit again I swear can this city_

_get chill for like 5 freaking minutes_

_Shooooooosh_

_Go back to sleep you aint gonna do anything by raging at them_

_You don’t know that and you can’t stop me_

_lu goodnight_

Rory sighed, knowing the following months were going to be tainted by the anxiety of police sirens and unfriendly faces. Guess her stargazing was going to have to take a raincheck for a little while.

This was going to be a long summer break.

Her gaze lingered on the golden chest, sitting innocuously on the trunk at the end of her bed. _The Cosmos Treasure Box_. How strange it felt, having this artifact of her new life (and, perhaps, her old, OLD life?) around, knowing that life, big L life, was about to rear its ugly head.

__

The Storybook Café knew to expect them, whether in the dark morning or crammed in with the afterschool rush. Their gatherings in the temple of café had become almost cultish in the last weeks leading up to summer break, their jittery energy outlasting even the drudgery of the school day. They were not quite used to the peace, but glad for the healing.

Mallory had appointed herself the designated drink supplier of their group, as she bafflingly still had access to the card of her House and therefore an oft-stretched allowance.

 _“It’s cheaper than renting the Needle,”_ the girl had shrugged.

But she refused to stand in line, so that task was passed off to Narma. A response to her feeling like the weakest link in these little meetings? No, not at all. But after that day, she had volunteered to do it for every meeting.

Namely, because the barista was very, very cute. Dark, curly hair and soulful eyes, yes please.

She leaned casually on the counter, trying to look nonchalant as Manuel turned back from wiping down the espresso machine.

“Got your order right here,” he grinned. He passed her the tray of four cups: a matcha-mint iced latte, a lavender lemonade, a chai, and a venti double shot. “Saw you guys come in a little while ago.”

She gestured to the line behind her. “You’re a popular guy, it seems. I’m flattered. Such special attention.” She fluttered her lashes dramatically, but in reality she _was_ flattered. How was she supposed to interpret this? Was this kindness for their patronage, or because she’d really, really been trying to get this guy’s attention for like two weeks now?

She’d left her number on a dollar in the tip jar once, but forgot to write her name. Stupid!

He laughed. “Only the best, of course, for my most loyal customers.” He gave a little bow.

She giggled _._ She sounded like an idiot. “Well, thank you then, good sir.” She passed over the card and tried not to stare _too_ obviously into his puppy-dog eyes.

His eyes glanced to their table in the corner. “What is it you guys are always talking about over there, anyway? Seems like there’s…” They stared, the day’s argument continuing to volley wildly in the corner, Rory attempting to talk Mallory down from her suggestion of patrol in the city, “…a pretty heated debate going on.”

Watching those two was like seeing an unstoppable force meeting an unmovable object.

Except they were both dorks. “Eh. You know. Just summer plans.”

He nodded his chin shortly. “I see. Must be some plans.” He glanced away. “Hopefully, you won’t be _too_ busy. I was…actually hoping we might be able to go out some time.” He raised his brows.

As he casually passed back the debit card, she felt the texture of a piece of paper slipped in beside it. Holy shit, finally! “Well, I may be able to work you into my busy schedule.” She tucked the card back into her pocket. “I’ll have to get back to you once I’ve checked with my secretary.”

“Just give me a call when you’re available,” he winked. “I’m sure we can work something out.”

She returned to the table with a new sense of accomplishment, the argument still going strong. She passed out the drinks, the wayward paper crinkling in her pocket.

Mallory jammed a finger into the table top. “This strategy is going to be vital if we are going to continue our vigilantism in the city. We can’t just sit on our thumbs and wait until something gets big enough to end up on the news. There’s no point in training if the end result is us being a completely ineffectual force.”

Narma smiled into her straw, settling back into her seat. "Maybe we should get a bat signal."

True to form, Mallory took the suggestion with the utmost sincerity. "I doubt we could find somewhere we could see it at all times."

Rory’s eyebrows scrunched up together. It still felt odd to see her so serious; hard to believe this was the same girl who spent their last week of middle school parkouring onto the roof so she and Narma could eat together away from the loudness of other people. “Girl, all I’m saying is it is going to look suspicious if the little four of us keep showing up on the same routes.”

That seemed like such a small world now. Rory's priorities had certainly shifted; she'd really taken charge during the whole pithos calamity. Hard to believe it had only been a couple weeks. Narma dashed her pencil over the center of her sketchpad, red shade forming the edge of a suit. She’d…kind of gotten into the habit of designing around her current muse? What could she say; Manuel had model-like features. Not her usual thing, but there was a collection of around twenty different outfits in her book now that said otherwise.

There was a rustling as someone took the seat at Narma's side. "Sorry I'm late," Carmen said breathlessly. She brushed her bangs from her forehead. "Had to deliver some packages downtown for my dad."

Narma pushed down the tender pang at her friend's harried expression; keep it nice and platonic. Talking with the girl had gotten more comfortable, but girl's presence was still a recipe for mixed feelings.

Narma eyed the multiple bags she'd been toting, which looked heavy all on their own. "Tell him to get a butler. He can afford it." She pulled over the lavender lemonade from the center of the table, passing it to Carmen.

"Thanks." Carmen took a sip from the dripping cup. "He _needs_ an assistant. He just doesn't have time to look for one. Hey, did you get the application in?”

Narma brightened. She’d actually forgotten she’d got that shit done, riding off the high of scoring the cute barista’s number. “Yeah, I did. They are going to be looking over applications by the last week of school. I’ve just got to wait around at this point.”

Seattle was host to one of the most watched fashion institutes currently on the rise. She’d been both thrilled and frantic when she’d found out they were hosting summer internships for students only one week from the deadline, and she’d been scouring her sketch books for her best work since. She’d finally sent off the application a couple days ago.

“That’s great,” Carmen smiled.

“Yeah,” Rory added, who had 100% been subjected to Narma’s frantic texts as she typed up her cover letter in a frenzy at two in the morning. “She’s got this. She’s been on the fashion thing for years. They’d be stupid not to bring her in.”

“Meh.” Narma had never known how to respond to compliments, but she relished in the warmth glowing in her chest.

Mallory sat up in hair chair as Carmen pulled out several books from her bag. "Ah, doing some research. That could be beneficial to the current situation. Good work, operative."

Carmen thumped the cover of the book open. She sighed. "It’s just calculus, sorry."

"Oh." Mallory nodded. "Of course." She coughed, and Narma struggled not to laugh at her. However Narma might have felt, that girl was not subtle at all. "So are you down for the patrol plan, or what?"

Carmen didn't meet her eyes. "Um."

Mallory threw her arms up. "Oh, come on, people!"

Rory slurped loudly from her cup. "Girl, we just got done with the crazy. Can't we just chill for a minute?"

"We've been ‘chilling’ for three weeks,” Mallory huffed, leaning dangerously back onto only two chair legs. "I'm just not at all convinced that someone isn't going to show up to yoink this ancient artifact in about two seconds."

That’s right—the Cosmos Treasure Box thing. Celene hadn’t been able to tell them much, but enough for Narma to gather that the thing might be a hot commodity for frisky aliens.

Rory placed a hand on the other girl’s shoulder, steading the chair legs back on the ground with a _clack_. "Hey, you don't have to be in super-spy mode anymore, remember? All this prep is rad as heck, but you don't have to stress about this thing every second. It seems like everything is fitting to stay calm right now, anyways.”

Narma’s hand jolted a thick line across the paper as the lights went out overhead. “Shit!”

There was a yelp of surprise somewhere in the room. Everyone looked up—which, why? Not like they were going to see anything, it was a _power outage—_ but the lights remained unlit. It wasn’t that dark, though, sundown just encroaching on the horizon. Chatter gauged up in the room.

Mallory stared across at them flatly.

“…it could be nothing,” Rory said slowly.

“Sorry guys,” a girl called from the register. “Not sure what happened. We’re going to check the fuses now. Hang tight.”

Carmen frowned. Rising from her seat, she moved towards the door, leaning to peer out.

Narma got up to follow, curious.

“I don’t think you’re going to have any luck with that,” Carmen called back into the room, her clear voice distinct in the hubbub. She turned to the register. “Looks like it’s the whole block.”

Narma frowned. She looked herself—sure enough, figures meandered along the street looking lost, peering puzzled at the blank traffic lights and unlit store fronts. In the distance, even as the falling sun made them more visible, the high-rises were all dark inside. She couldn’t see a single light on anywhere.

“Nah,” Mallory called from behind. Turning, Narma saw the girl consulting her phone. “It’s the whole city. News team just posted an update about it. Apparently, they just got like a million texts.”

“You subscribe to the Channel 5’s news feed?” Narma raised her pierced brow.

“Of course.” Mallory cut her phone off.

The ruckus cut out at the lights flickered back on. “Oh,” Carmen lowered her hand from the door. “I guess that was it, then.”

Rory’s frown did not waiver, though. She shot Narma a look from her place at the table. Narma nodded back, finishing her drink. She couldn’t help but wonder what had happened.

As they filed out of the Café, Rory was already ready with marching orders. It seemed Mallory was going to get her wish after all. “As you guys head home, keep an eye out. If you see anything weird, send out the signal. As much as I want to think this was just the electric company goofing it, we can’t be too careful.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Mallory saluted sardonically, before turning and heading back towards the House.

“And let me know when you get home,” Rory called after her, Carmen agreed too before they all went their separate ways. Of course, in Narma and Rory’s case, the way was the same.

“I am really not about this weird shit again,” Narma sighed.

“Yeah.” Rory’s miniature backpack was held in her arms, instead of her back. Narma wondered if she was conscious of it. She seemed distracted. “Hey. So that noise this morning.”

Narma took a breath. “I know I only caught the tail end of it last time, right before the last bust. I’m sorry; I know if this thing blows up its going to be worse for you.” Even outside of whatever caused that noise, if folks began patrolling the neighborhood they were always going to look at Rory and think worse of her than Narma. Sad fucking fact. It pissed her off so bad. Rory wouldn’t hurt a fly, wouldn’t get involved in that shit ever, even if technically she was now able to rip a space monster to pieces. Which, wild, by the way.

“It’s just the world,” Rory sighed. “You would think being space aliens would mean we’re exempt from this kind of BS.”

She snorted. “Unfortunately girl, I think people would find a way to be fucking racists even in space.” She paused. “Space-racists.”

“Spacists,” Rory threw in, grinning.

The street lights flickered. Narma stopped, a familiar sensation coiling inside of her. She peered back to Rory to find her staring back with the same expression. Slowly, reluctantly, she asked. “…does your stomach hurt?”

__

At a nearby location, a woman in a lab coat pulled the lever back into the upright position. The transfer complete, she stepped back, eyes peering over the scan of the city. The map of the power grid shuddered like a settling wave. “I believe that’s done it. Everything seems to be prepared.”

The Professor crossed her arms, gaze moving to the flickering video feed on the main screen. “You’re sure this is going to work.”

The Benefactor, her currently constant and critical mentor, glanced down her nose at her, pushing up her glasses. “I would have to be, wouldn’t I? I’ve tested the technology myself. This should be basic for you. Or is the incentive not enough?” The particular loathing burning in her gaze set all the professor’s hackles up, its depth and familiarity.

But now was not the time. She had worked too hard on this, ever since the Benefactor’s first contact. It was time to enact their magnum opus. She gritted her teeth. “You know it is.”

Fingers skimming over the number pad on the Machine’s interface, she flipped the lever in the opposite direction. Taking a breath, she slowly and purposefully pressed down on the **1**.

__

The flickering amped up, the flashes of light on the still not-fully-sundown avenue becoming a strobe. Narma’s already cramping stomach dropped as something seemed to flicker in the distance.

“What is that?” Rory squinted, the shape impossible to make out from where they were standing.

“We can follow the lights.” Narma took off. No time to waste. This little techno light party wasn’t nothing after all, it seemed.

“I’ll head on. Don’t move in without me.” Rory flung the bag around her shoulders.

Like she would. She watched Rory use a nearby alleyway as easily as a stairwell and shoot off, free-running the roof tops.

She was not as fit, no debate, but she kept going. There were screams from ahead. She almost let out an exclamation of grief as she saw the origin point of the light show. _Go figure. Aurora Bridge._

Cars were backed up spectacularly, doors hanging open and abandoned. She stopped short as she identified the cause, mouth dropping open. _What the hell is that!?_

She wasn’t sure how to even describe it. It was almost like a living lightning bolt, but with arms and legs, almost bug-like. A void of dark interior with a bright white aura along the edges and streaming from its eyes. It was bright, and sharp-looking. It was huge. It hung gripping the rafters of the bridge, screeching. The sound was horrible—it remained Narma of the time she’d traveled south to visit family, and a cicada had gotten stuck in the jam of her relative’s door.

She gaped, only shook out of it when a hand gripped the back of her shirt and pulled her into the alley. She turned to see Rory, looking as horrified as she felt. “What _is_ that?”

Rory said, “I don’t know!”

“It’s huge!”

_“I know!”_

“We’ve got to fight that?” Narma knew it wasn’t really a question.

“I…” Rory faltered. “I guess?” She dropped the backpack, pulling out what Narma already know would be inside—the beta scepter. She reached into her own pocket, feeling the same.

But, wait—that wasn’t right anymore, was it? They knew their planet’s names now. Should they call that instead? She raised the scepter, and prepared to activate it, but inside her head, something was still suggesting something different. A memory.

Always better to just go with it, she had found. She cried out, “Egeria _Star_ Power, make-up!”

The same tingling sensation overtook her as always, vision obscured by prismatic light. But in her hand, she could almost feel the scepter shifting. The light dimmed. She looked to Beta—Boreas, she guessed—and noticed something else. “You look different!”

Her uniform had changed, just slightly. There were more stripes along her collar and skirt (ranking? The military did that, right?) the flared armor on her shoulders seeming more severe. Looking down, she noticed the same changes in her own uniform.

“You too,” Sailor Boreas shot back. “Maybe because we used the names?”

“Who knows,” Narma replied. “Now let’s do see what we’re dealing with.”

They moved towards the bridge, scepters at the ready. Narma had never fought anything this big before, and she wasn’t feeling good about this thing seeming to have some kind of electric theme. Not a great combo with water powers.

“What is it doing?” Boreas squinted at the thing.

Matter of fact, what was it doing? The bridge was cleared now of any fleeing civilians. So why was it up there?

“Good damn question. Hey, spindly legs! Yeah, I’m talking to you!”

The creature didn’t seem to care about the taunting. It did, however, turn its attention to them. It screeched. “Eeeeeeeeekkkk!”

“Oh, shit,” Narma—no, wait, she was Egeria right now, might as well be consistent—turned to see Sailor Boreas staring not at the creature, but the road as they advanced. She followed her line of sight and froze.

She’d been wrong about the civilians. Although the cars were thrown open, there were still plenty of people on the road, face down or crumpled. No blood, though. The street was fully of seemingly uninjured but unconscious people. How was that? Did this thing manage to somehow knock all these people out without actually hurting them? How considerate.

A thought left her cold: _maybe they’d been electrocuted._ Maybe these people were dead.

No time to find out. The creature began to advance.

It crawled along the bridge side before sweeping out a limb. The thin, needle-like bolt of an arm swept out at them, Egeria leaping back to get out of the way. She could only hope Boreas had done the same. The path of the arm cut cleanly through a line of empty cars, car alarms screaming into the open air. The sun was disappearing in the distance, the creature’s energy blinking wildly.

“So it’s made of lightsabers,” Boreas panted out. “I didn’t sign up for that.”

Egeria laughed. “You signed up?”

Nope, this thing didn’t have a sense of humor. It pulled the arm back and struck out with a leg. The lightning bolt point crashed into the asphalt before them. They dove away,

She heard Sailor Boreas cast out her base attack; that thing was reliable to a t. _“Dire Stellar Gust!”_

The creature hissed against the onslaught, but didn’t seem to be overly effected. Narma’s heart pounded. What if this thing turned out to just be more than they could handle?

She winced. While there was no blood on the concrete now, Spindly Legs did not seem to care where his strikes landed. That kick out had been way to close to a civilian splayed on the ground below. If it hit anything like the, where it had slashed through the cars…

Weird, though. If this thing had any sort of lightning powers, why wasn’t it using them? It seemed to be relying on physical attacks. Sailor Egeria moved forward.

“No dice,” Rory cum Sailor Boreas called out.

“My turn, then.” Egeria swung out her arms. How to do this? There was plenty of water below… maybe she could knock it off. “How do you like this, guy? Typhoon Strikedown!”

She’d never tried to use the attack horizontally before. It didn’t really work: the water blasted from between the cars, but the entity just contorted unnaturally out of the way. She hissed; that put her out for the next few minutes, too. Dammit.

The creature’s mannerisms had shifted. While before she might have called the thing mildly irritated by their presence; now it seemed almost too intent. It screeched, but still, none of its lightning-like body moved to zap them. Why?

Apparently, Sailor Boreas had noticed something before she did, because she suddenly heard her gasp, “Quick, get off the pavement!”

Too late. No sooner had she registered the order than lightning descended on the bridge, But she wasn’t electrocuted, as she had anticipated. Instead, the waves of energy dragged over her, and a heaviness flooded through her, rushing to replace it. Her knees were weak; she crashed to the pavement. Why—why couldn’t she— “ _Danm_ ,” she slurred. “ _Sorrrry_. Can’t- _t_ move.”

There was a sort of ringing in the air, but she could make out Boreas replying after screaming out another gust. “It’s not expelling energy, it’s absorbing it! It’s using the metal in the roadway as a conductor _. Crap_.”

That explained the absence of that static being weaponized. It didn’t want to expend its payload, maybe. Narma tried to lift herself up, but merely crashed back to the roadway. Looked like whatever upgrade she’d unlocked was going to be useless to her anyway.

Still, she had to do _something._ Sailor Boreas—screw it, _Rory_ —was now fighting something twice her size with an attack that didn’t work on it.

Regret, now, for not following their own rules. They should have called for backup.

Rory was doing her best to stay off the ground, but it wasn’t doing her much good. Everything around them was metal, metal, metal. The girl yelped, leaping from cartop to cartop trying to avoid the drain. “Dire Stellar—agh!”

Narma yelped as the creature’s leg caught Rory in the middle. She watched her friend spit up blood as she collided with the railing opposite—and flipped over. _No!_

But no, still there. She could see the golden yellow of the girl’s glove still clinging to the edge as she screamed from below. _“Help!”_

She could still barely move. What could she do? She watched Spindly Legs crawl down from the scaffolding, moving for the other side where Rory was hanging, vulnerable.

How determined was this thing to hold on to what it had collected? This could be a really bad idea. She grit her teeth, fighting to raise her arm. Once more, recharged, she called on her attack—this time, straight down. “Typhoon Strikedown!”

The geyser crashed down over the creature. Narma shuddered as stray sparks flickered through her nerves, but the rampant rain obeyed her, confining itself to a controlled ring around the creature.

It shrieked. It almost seemed to short-circuit, its own electricity dancing over its body. _If you can’t handle the pain, don’t dish it out, creep._ Finally, it spasmed, crawling frantically over the wall to the underside of the bridge.

The lights stopped flickering. With relief, Narma began to feel the drain on her limbs loosen, like someone had turned down the gravity. She dragged herself over, gravel biting into her legs, to grasp Rory’s hand. “Got you. Can you pull yourself up?”

“Y-yeah,” Rory hissed. “Got the leverage now.” Once topside, she leaned onto her knees, looking shaken. Surprisingly, the area in the middle of her uniform where she had gotten hit didn’t seem to be torn, but she could see the stretch in the fabric where the impact had landed.

“Did I kill it?” Narma asked, eyes frantically scanning the bridge’s edges. The possibility seemed too good to be true. “Did it fall in the water?”

Sailor Boreas shook her head. Leaning back over, her gaze reflected the empty depths of the water below. “No,” she said. “No. It just vanished.”

They looked at each other. Narma managed to pull herself up, bracing on an abandoned car. “We need to text the others. Let them know what’s going on.”

“When need to call the hospital,” Rory said, clutching her middle.

Narma’s stomach dropped. “It got you that bad?”

“No,” Rory said. “But look around. Notice anything?”

She didn’t until Rory said it. The bridge’s silence felt like a liminal space, like a parking lot at midnight, an area of passage from one plain to another, unusually still.

All around them, no one else was moving to get up. 

“What _is_ this?” Narma heard herself say, feeling detached from her body.

Rory’s gaze over Aurora Bridge seemed to go on for miles. Absently, she shook her head. “I don’t know.”

__

The owner of the eastern van found a temporary stop in at a red-roof. It was a dismal place; Gwen was pretty sure there were bed bugs in at least one of the room’s two, and so she had offered to take the couch. Her body ached all over, which was fairly unusual for her. She usually took better care of it than this.

She stretched over her head, turning to gaze across to the room’s other occupant. “Alright, that’s the call, starshine. Time to go to bed.”

The other girl flopped onto her side compliantly, peering back through a fluffy cloud of hair. “You’re not going to sleep,” she accused mildly, expression flat. “You don’t sleep.”

That was a bit of an exaggeration, but not untrue in and of itself. Gwen probably wouldn’t sleep, but there were other things she would be handling in the meantime. “You got me there. You’ll just have to sleep extra hard for me.”

Gwen watched her close her eyes and turn onto her back. “I’ll send you an aura of restfulness.”

Gwen nodded. “I appreciate that.”

Her attention flicked back to her laptop, where two young faces stared back at her from the national news network. She closed the page, settling down on the couch to continue her research,

First thing in the morning, she needed to change their hair.


	2. Chapter 2

**Episode 2: Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News; or, Two Particles, Passing in the Night**

Rory could admit when she’d made a mistake. Not calling for the others, for example, had been a mistake, especially after she had specifically asked them to do the same. To say they were distressed was putting it mildly.

Especially considering the number of ambulances that had crowed out through the night.

Still, better than gun shots.

“Are you experiencing any sort of residual weakness?” Mallory’s gaze seemed to focus intently off into one corner, which Rory had to guess was the corner occupied by Narma’s camera feed in her version of the Skype call.

“No,” Narma answered shortly.

“Headaches? Drowsiness?”

“No.”

Rory wasn’t upset by the amount of attention diverted to Narma. Even if she’d been the one to take physical damage, Narma had been the one zapped by the strange new power of the creature she’d been referring to as “Spindly Legs.”

Celene’s tail whipped anxiously against the covers beside her, and she smoothed a hand down her back. Not being there for battles, it seemed, was still going to be a point of contension for the cat. Rory was just disheartened there were going to be more battles at all.

“I feel fine,” Narma shrugged. “Whatever that thing was trying to do, it didn’t do it to me.”

Carmen was silent, distracted if the way her eyes kept straying from the camera meant anything.

Mallory clicked the mini-led flashlight in her hand on and off in her own feed. Maybe she’d grabbed it on instinct or something, but she had kept ahold of it even after she had realized it wouldn’t work through a camera. “I’m concerned there might be some kind of delayed effect. That was a lot of civilians.”

“Yeah.” Rory bit her lip. “And we still don’t know what happened to those guys,”

“And it just vanished?” Carmen tugged at the collar of her shirt.

Rory thought back to what she had actually seen dangling from the side of Aurora Bridge. The thing sparking, skuttling along the underside of the road, and then…”It was almost like…you know when you cut off a TV and everything just kind of…zooms into the middle?”

Mallory rubbed her chin. “What, like it collapsed in on itself?”

“Sort of. Light-wise.”

“That’s something else,” Carmen spoke up. “You said you think that creature was absorbing energy, right? I was thinking that would explain what caused the power to cut out. But the lights came back on.”

Narma’s eyes widened. She smacked a fist against her palm. “So it didn’t absorb them.”

“A power surge, rather than an actual blackout.” Mallory nodded slowly. “Something was using a lot of power. Why use power just to suck it back up?”

Celene stood. “Could we track that?”

Mallory smiled wryly. “We do _not_ have the technology, sorry. Unless you have some connections with the power company, that is. I’m not even allowed within a hundred feet of that place after last time…” she trailed off.

Rory exchanged a look with the others. Um.

The blue-haired menace to society flipped a hand up. “And I’m not even sure they could do it.”

Narma spoke up. “What’s the harmony-dar say about all this?”

Carmen looked up, blinking. “Oh, uh. No, something’s definitely been displaced. I really doubt this was a one-time incident. Sorry; that’s about as specific as I can get with it.”

Mallory set the flashlight in her lap. She was staring straight into the camera, but there was no question who she was speaking to. “You should have called us.”

“We know, already,” Narma huffed, crossing her arms. “We didn’t exactly anticipate coming across anything on the Avenue except maybe some prostitutes.”

“And they’ve mostly cleared those guys out,” Rory threw in.

“Before anything else,” Celene frowned at her, “we need to focus on identifying what that creature was. Why does it need the energy? What danger does it pose? We must be at maximum vigilance.”

“You are speaking my language. Anybody sees anything—” Mallory glared into the screen for a moment. “—put out the all-alert.”

Everyone mumbled an affirmative.

“Oh!” Narma pointed to the screen. “Celene, I meant to ask. When we transformed this time, we looked different.”

Carmen and Mallory perked up. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Rory said. She looked down to their guide. “The uniforms were like…a little fancier? With more stripes.”

Celene raised a paw to her mouth. “Hm. Did you speak the summance any differently?”

Rory rocked back, clutching her feet. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

Celene lifted her head. Girl did like to school them whenever she got the chance, no doubt about it. Rory didn’t mind. She knew Celene wished she could be of more help at other times. “That would explain it. Certain summons are used to signify different levels of capability. Your trials with the refugees of Ambrosia must have been enough experience for your power’s maximum threshold to increase. Don’t be surprised if other changes arise as you re-engage your powers.”

“So…we leveled up?” Mallory raised a brow, leaning into the camera.

The flick of Celene’s tail paused. “…in a crude sense, yes.”

“Nice.”

“We used our planet names in the summance,” Rory clarified, “if you guys want to try it out.”

“Smart,” Celene nodded her little furry chin. “Honestly, I’m a little surprised your previous summance even worked, given the lack of a True Name. I suppose we should be grateful that the star seed’s power is so intuitive.”

Armed with their new information, they disconnected. Frowning, Rory picked up the conversation she’d been having with Narma prior to the call. She still was not convinced.

you should have gone to the hospital

no u

i’m fine, just bruised. you collapsed, girl.

no but really. reports online

are saying that most of the civilians

were taken to mercy west but the er

is being really dodgy about their conditions

you guys should check there,

see if you can get any info

That…actually wasn’t a bad idea. But “you guys;” Rory stared down at her phone disapprovingly.

what about you? you actually got whammied!

i have some other things i need to take

care of. have fun without me. i’ll

catch up later.

“What is it?” Celene’s large eyes examined her expression, which must have been reflecting as conflicted as she felt. She still really thought that Narma should be getting checked out, but any information they could get now might be helpful.

“Some stuff,” though? That was vague. Was there something Narma wasn’t telling her?

“Guess it’s time to do some reconnaissance work. You coming?”

Celene straightened. “Of course.”

Rory sent out a text to the group. _Guess it’s time for a check-up._

\--

Narma minimized her conversation with Rory, heart pounding as she stared at the notification that had just dropped into her inbox. She didn’t dare to hope that the contents were as promising as the subject line: Interviews Today.

_Ms. Narmada Anand,_

_We are pleased to inform you we were highly impressed with your recent application to the summer internship program with the Seattle Institute of Design. We would like to invite you for an interview at your earliest convenience at one of the following appointment times. If you choose to accept this opportunity, respond with your preferred time and you will receive an automated response confirming your interview time, or letting you know if the time is previously booked. We look forward to hearing from you. If you have an extended portfolio, we suggest you bring it to your appointment time. We look forward to meeting you._

_Thank you for your interest,_

_Rebecca Greenwood_

**President of the Seattle Institute of Design**

_Holy crap holy crap._

Frantically, Narma scanned the documents open time slots, noting that the earliest were same day, beginning that afternoon. On instinct alone, she metaphorically leapt down to the first entry, typing in her name, misspelling it twice before hitting _reply_.

Only a couple of seconds passed before a email came back: **Interview Appointment Confirmation.**

_Holy crap!_

Only once the adrenaline had dissipated did it sink in that the time she had vied for was only three hours away.

Holy _shit!_

She scrambled off her bed, dashing for the bathroom where she promptly threw up, took a shower, and did her best to get ready for the interview she had scheduled with not a moment of preparation.

Why couldn’t she have some more useful power? Like time travel?

She wondered how things were going with the others.

Mallory hadn’t spent a ton of time in hospitals. She’d gone a few times as a child, when she’d gotten a bit too overzealous at games of make-believe and broken a limb or two. Even so, she was familiar enough with the atmosphere of a hospital to know that the skittishness permeating the building was not to the norm. She tucked her hands in her pockets, watching a couple of doctors whispering poorly in the corner. Yeah, nothing weird there.

Carmen, too, seemed uncomfortable.

Mallory eyed her. “What’s up?

The girl rubbed at one arm. “Had a friend hospitalized a few weeks back for similar reasons. Just…bad memories.” She paused. “It feels like this is happening all over again.”

From one crisis to another, it seemed. Mallory frowned. “I’m sorry; I didn’t know. Mm, thanks for being here anyways.”

Carmen rolled back her shoulders, brows cross. “Of course. I wouldn’t leave Narma to just wait this out, even if she wants to.”

From behind her, Rory spoke up. “Man, they seem really spooked, don’t they?”

“I don’t like it,” Mallory moved towards the reception. She leaned across the counter. “Hi, we’re here from the Garfield Times; we have clearance for an interview with…” Her eyes flicked to the on-call chart on the back wall, searching for the administrator on duty, “Dean Eastley about the future plan for expansion on the trauma wing. They requested we come on back when we arrive.”

The man at the counter narrowed his eyes. “You seem a little young.”

“We’re interns,” Mallory straightened, keeping her face neutral. “This is a junior assignment.”

The man still didn’t seem convinced, adjusting his tie. “And all three of you need back there?”

Shit, that _was_ excessive, think fast. She pretended to bristle. “ _Well_ ,” she said shortly, gesturing to Rory, “ _she_ is our is camera man and my _girlfriend_ here,” to Carmen, whose eyes blew wide, “is my secretary and is in charge of keeping notes to make sure we touch on everything we’ve been assigned to. Unless you’ve got some kind of _problem_ with that? You some kind of homophobe?”

The man paled. “My apologizes, I hadn’t meant to imply, I had no idea—”

_Got ‘em._ She crossed her arms. “I’m sure your boss would love to hear we got this kind of treatment coming in here; Jesus, man, we’re just trying to do our jobs.”

The poor guy, who she really doubted was actually any sort of homophobe, sputtered, trying to get his bearings. “No, no, I really am sorry. Of course you can go back. Just…” He placed a hand on the counter, the room’s hush creeping back in. A chill crept up Mallory’s back, her prior humor dampened. He whispered, “Please be mindful of the intensive care wing. We’re trying to limit any outside stimulus as much as possible, until we have a better grasp on the situation. You understand.”

Mallory nodded, swallowing. “Of course. Thank you.”

They turned and moved through the entrance.

Their leader saddled up beside her. “Dang, girl!” Rory clapped her on the shoulder. “You really made that guy sweat! How long you been at this sneaking-somewhere-you-ain’t-supposed-to-be thing?”

Mallory scanned the rooms as they passed them. Waiting rooms, a nurse’s station, single rooms with stressed out families huddled inside. It all seemed too generic. She said, “Longer than you could possibly imagine,” which sounded acceptably dramatic. She glanced back to Carmen. “Sorry about the secretary thing, by the way.”

Carmen looked frazzled, hair mussed by a nervous hand. Hm, no comment. “You’re apologizing for calling me your _secretary_?”

“Guys!” Trust Rory to stay on target. “Look, a hospital directory. What floor is intensive care on?

Carmen shook her head, moving to look at the diagram. “It looks like it’s on the floor above this.”

Rory tapped her fist in her hand. “We should speak to as many sources as possible. Nurses, doctors. See if anyone got to speak to the police.”

Carmen crossed her arms, drawing in on herself. “We need to know we kind of symptoms the bridge bystanders were having. If there were any…prolonged effects.”

Mallory was sure they were all thinking the same thing: no one of them could be sure that their forth comrade had made it out of the woods. These were unknown adversaries, and it was too early to tell what the true impact of their leeching ability might be. This was critical intelligence. She nodded stiffly. “I agree. That should be of the utmost importance.”

They took the stairwell, if only because it was closer. Just one floor, anyways. When they emerged onto the next level, it was deathly quiet. The doctors were sparse, the nurses flitting silently from one room to another with the utmost efficiency. The few manning the nurse’s station eyed them with a level of distrust; Mallory couldn’t blame them, or the man at the front desk for that matter. She was sure this place had been stupid with journalists for as many hours as the Aurora Bridge had been plastered on the news.

They collectively slowed when the corridor emerged into the floor’s main venue: the intensive care unit. Mallory’s stomach twisted. The room was an enormous space; she could see where privacy curtains had been hastily pushed to the side to make room.

There were dozens of people. Not in familial clusters the way the private rooms had been, but splayed limply beneath white sheets, tucked in like children whilst monitors beeped menacingly in the background. It was still as a morgue.

“Oh, no,” Rory whispered, hand rising to her mouth. It didn’t feel like enough. From what Mallory had been told, there had been injuries in the past, civilians who had gotten in the way of the pithos, but nothing to this scale. “Oh, this might be all of them. Everyone that was there.”

“ _No one_ has recovered?” Carmen yelped, staring over the huge room of motionless people.

“Uh- _hm_.”

They turned to see a middle-aged woman with deep bags under her eyes. Her badge read _Marsha_. She planted her hands on her hips. “Ladies, we _are_ trying to keep the volume down so we don’t disturb the patients.”

But Carmen stepped forward. “I’m checking up on my aunt. Have there been any improvements? I hadn’t been able to get in yet.”

Mallory looked up at her (the girl really did tower over the rest of them,) feeling a sudden swell of pride. That was a _smooth_ lie; good work Carmen. She watched as she flawlessly continued the conversion. It seemed Carmen had the nurse front. It might do them better to expand their investigation from there.

She steered Rory away, leaning in keep the volume low. “Looks like we are on doctor and cop duty. If the cops spoke to anyone about something this large, they would have spoken to the Dean of Medicine.”

Rory’s brows lifted. “So you _do_ think we should try and talk to Eastley?”

Mallory shrugged. “Might as well try.” She barely _, just barely_ resisted saying _we need them to take us to their leader._ But then, she spied movement from over Rory’s shoulder from within the medical ICU. With a shock, she thought for a moment someone was getting up.

But no, all the beds were still occupied. It seemed there was someone else there, checking up on one of the patients. A nurse moved into the space, but there was another girl wandering the room, blonde hair in a long braid. She wore the kind of outfit Narma might scoff at, given her own experience: an army jacket, light skinny jeans, a simple striped shirt beneath. Minimum effort. That would make sense, for someone in distress.

Also, the sunglasses tucked in her collar. Mallory frowned; couldn’t have someone jacking her swagger (though she wasn’t even wearing her shades at the moment, her reading glasses instead in her coat pocket.) Her gaze moved back to Rory, who seemed a bit put-off by her sudden silence. “There’s someone else here,” she said. Rory turned to confirm, and she continued. “I’m going to see what they’ve been told. Might eliminate the need to speak to multiple nurses; if someone’s been here, they would have already asked.”

“I’ll take Dean Eastley duty, then.” Rory nodded.

She turned back to the nurse’s station, and Mallory caught a glimpse of Celene, patiently tucked inside Rory’s undersized backpack. They couldn’t exactly walk in with her. She subtly nodded to her.

“Sorry,” Rory interrupted, “but do you know where I might find Dean Eastley?”

Carmen, catching on, added, “She wants to thank them for taking such good care of our families.”

Dang, Carmen. Back at it again with the persuasive lies. Mallory’s mouth twisted. If it were anyone else, she would almost wonder if she had something to worry about.

“Yeah!” Rory jumped in. “So many people got affected, and you guys are really stepping up.”

The nurse blinked widely. “Oh? It’s…I mean, we’re just doing our best. That’s very sweet, though. I believe she’s up in the cardiothoracic wing on floor five.” She pointed. “Elevators are around the corner and down the hall.”

Rory saluted. “Got it. Thanks!”

Parting from them, she headed for the elevator.

Mallory turned her attention back to the MICU. Moving into the room, the noise of a number of monitors in the openness gave the sound a sort of insulated quality. Trying not to make it to obvious, she perused the room, subtly examining the other occupant.

Something seemed…odd. The girl moved through the room in much the same manner, though she gravitated back to the bed of an old woman periodically. Thing is, she didn’t seem upset. No puffy eyes, no rumpled clothing, hair smooth and clean in its braid. One would think if a loved one were in this state one might have more of a reaction.

She watched the girl move to the window, where the dingy sunlight fell over her. Catching her eye, the girl straightened. “Sorry, I hope I’m not bothering you. Just trying to get my thoughts together.” She gestured behind herself. “My friend Gina hasn’t woken up yet.”

She had a certain quality about her, a focus in her grey-blue eyes, but Mallory couldn’t quite discern what it was. Mallory nodded. “Of course.” She lowered her voice. “To be honest, I’m actually here investigating the attack.”

The girl’s eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t appear bothered by the revelation. In fact, her body language—turning more in Mallory’s direction, wider stance, staring her in the face—seemed to indicate she was _more_ comfortable.

Still, no use taking chances. “We know that this is affecting a lot of people, and we want to make sure that this event is being given the attention it deserves. Have they been able to tell you anything?”

The girl narrowed her eyes. “No. There haven’t been any changes since they originally brought everyone in from the bridge. Totally unconscious. Almost a coma-state.”

Mallory leaned forward. “So this _is_ everyone? No one from the bridge was _not_ in this state?”

“No,” the girl answered shortly, almost methodically. “Thirty-six people.” She brought a hand to her chin. “The odd thing is, physically, they seem fine. No real injuries, except a little road rash here and there.”

Mallory’s brows hiked up her forehead. Well, _that_ was a flippant way to be talking about it.

“But they have no idea what’s keeping them asleep. Their brain waves are normal. Pulse, slightly slower than usual, which worries them. But no physical trauma.”

“Worries _them_ , you say.” Mallory tilted her head, raising a finger. This was _odd_. “Aren’t you worried?

The girl paused. Something about her tone, apprehensive and sharp: “Of _course_ , I’m worried.” She rolled her shoulders back. “What did you say your name was, again?”

“I didn’t,” Mallory shot back. The girl’s gaze was analytical, and a little condescending; it had been a long time since Mallory had felt seen by someone with such intention. Well, besides the police, but that was an average Tuesday. She extended a hand, and the girl looked surprised. “My apologizes for my lack of professionalism. I’m Mallory.”

The girl examined her hand as though it were rigged to explode. It…made her feel a little self-conscious, actually. She hesitated, and then shook it in a single downward swing. She smiled. It was impersonal. “Gwen.”

The room was plunged into darkness.

\--

_Moments Earlier, in the Elevator…_

Rory waited for the car to reach the fifth floor. She was surprised there weren’t more people, with this being a busy hospital. Maybe people were too worried about the creature to be out and about? She had seen the news report, the fuzzy image of Spindly Legs hulking over the bridge from the street camera. She wouldn’t want another round with that thing either.

Celene peeked her head out of the backpack. “This is humiliating,” she fussed, shaking her head out. “We _must_ find a better way to do this!”

Rory grinned at her. “You wanted to come, girl.”

“As an advisor, not a…a stowaway!” She hissed.

She laughed. “Just keep an eye out,” she said. “Just let me know what you see. Right now, any info is good info.”

The elevator dinged, and she disembarked.

It didn’t take long to locate the Dean. Out of all the people with badges, only one of them had a suit on. Rory made her way over as the woman finished apparently giving out orders as three orderlies flitted away from her.

“What’s your plan?” Celene whispered from the backpack.

“I’m going with the story,” Rory murmured.

She confirmed her suspicions as she neared: the badge read _Dominique Eastley, Dean of Medicine._ “Excuse me.”

The woman turned to her. “Yes? How can I help you?”

“My grandma was one of the bridge victims,” _Sorry Gramma Beatty, lord protect her, “_ And I wanted to thank you guys for how you are handling this whole thing. It was a lot of people.”

A flash of sympathy crossed the woman’s face, her brows furrowing. “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. No need to thank us, really. We’re just trying to adapt to the situation the best we can. I can assure you, we’ll let the public know as soon as we have any developments.” It sounded a little rehearsed. She must have been fielding people all night.

Rory waved a hand. Really, she should probably look sadder. _Huh-hm, get into character, Rory._ “I get it. There’s no time.” Time to move in. “Did…the police say anything about what happened? They were really shifty about what happened on the news.”

The Dean Eastley glanced away. _Dang, she’s probably been told not to discuss it._ “We’re going to keep people here as long as we can,” she said, dodging the question. But then she faltered. “There are some concerns that the pranksters behind the whole ‘monster’ scare a couple weeks ago might be involved, but that is not confirmed. Please don’t tell anyone I told you.”

The information grazed the top of Rory’s head for a second. _Pranksters?_ Obviously, she was talking about the pithos, but the police had never known about the Agents, so…?

It hit her. _Us. She’s talking about the vigilante reports; they think **we’re** involved?_ But then again, they would have seen them in the battle at the bridge. It wasn’t that much of a stretch, honestly. “I won’t,” she said. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

There wasn’t. With the number of people, they were going to continue monitoring them as long as possible, but there were no guarantees. She loaded back into the elevator, and Celene peaked her head out. “That wasn’t overly helpful.”

“No,” Rory sighed. She hit the button for the second floor as the elevator doors closed. “We just get to tell the others we’re on the suspect list, I guess.”

The lights went out with a flicker. The elevator ground to a stop.

Rory took a deep breath. _Oh no._

\--

_Moments Earlier, at the Nurse’s Station…_

Carmen could handle this. With the amount of time she spent at this hospital over the past couple months, one would think she’d be used to having this conversation. Of course, Alyssa was well and about now, but just being here drug up old feelings of guilt and inadequacy.

Right now, though, she had a job to do. “So. There haven’t been any improvements, then.”

Nurse Marsha shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”

Maybe she should rephrase. Above all else, they needed to know if there was anything else they needed to look out for in Narma. “Have there been any changes at _all_?”

She hesitated. “I wouldn’t say there have been changes, but. Their pulses are slower than normal. Their brainwaves don’t indicate any dream activity. A few of them had tremors during the night, but just tremors. No seizure activity. Probably just some residual restlessness in the limbs. If they weren’t comatose, I would say they’re perfectly healthy.”

Something about the explanation caused a tickle in her brain, as if she’d forgotten something. Even so, this was mostly nothing that they didn’t already know. “Have there been any others keeping an eye on this group? It would give me peace of mind if I could just make sure no one saw anything.

Marsha frowned. “We’ll all been in and out of there all night. But…Grace is still here from last night. I can take you to her.”

“I would appreciate that, thank you.”

They moved down the corridor, though double doors until the came to a cart with needles and bags of fluids strewn across it. A short, round woman with twists emerged from one of the rooms, and Marsha called out. “Hey Grace, this girl wanted to ask you about the bridge patients—”

The lights shut down. Marsha jumped, cursing, and abruptly they both turned and began running down the hall. “No, no, not again!”

Startled, Carmen took off after them.

“Code Blue to rooms 234-252,” she called into a pager, before sending the message off.

“What’s going on?” Carmen’s voice carried through the halls, almost drowned by the sound of heels on tile.

“We have patients on life support here,” Marsha bit out, and Carmen’s stomach dropped. “That power surge yesterday totally drained our backup generators.”

\--

A single, sickening note called out in a cacophony throughout the room, and the two of them scrambled away from the wall. The screens throughout the room displayed nothing but flatlines. As much as the slight disturbed her, Mallory knew not to panic quite yet. She pressed her fingers to the neck of the nearest patient.

Gwen stood by, body a stiff line. “Are they…?”

Mallory breathed. “It’s just the machines,” she said. “They’re still breathing. The monitors just can’t pick anything up with the power off. “

If the power was going off again, that had to mean the creature was nearby. But why hadn’t the power come back on yet?

_Unless it was keeping them off on purpose._

Mallory considered that. Was it sentient enough to strategize that way? What exactly was it they were dealing with?

Regardless, if there was a monster nearby, she needed to ditch this girl immediately and find the fight. Who knew what sort of situation the others might be in? She peered around.

With the most authority she could muster, she said, “You need to stay here. Close the shutters, lock yourself in. I’ll go get help.”

“Stay here?” The girl bristled.

“Did you see the full news report? If the power’s going out, that’s not a good sign. Lock yourself in.”

Before the girl could argue, Mallory grabbed the unit’s metal shutters and closed them. The girl’s alarmed face having been successfully obscured, the Soldier peered around the hallway. Her gaze tracked up and down the corridor.

Damn it, where the hell was Carmen? Where had all the nurses gone?

Letting out a yell of exasperation, Mallory shot off down the hall.

\--

Of course, she had to be in the elevator.

“What happened?” Celene piped up, eyes huge in the dimness. “Why did we stop?”

“Power’s out.” Rory gently pulled out her backpack, where the cat leapt to the floor. “No power means no elevator. It’s the same thing that happened before.”

Celene gasped. “Oh _no_.”

“My thoughts exactly, little cat.” She tapped her foot on the floor. We can’t go anywhere until the elevator’s back up.”

She waited for a moment, then two. The last time, the power had only been out for a few minutes, although it took several more for everything to get back up and running. As time drew on, a tinge of unease started up in her belly, and the more she began to believe the power wasn’t going to come back on.

Kneeling down, she fished in her bag. Inside, she found a hard-cover notebook she’d been using to take notes for her end of year exams.

Celene padded closer. “What are you doing?”

Rory held the notebook so that the two outside covers of the notebook were pressing together, forming a wedge. All of the other pages fanned uselessly out towards her. “I want to see where we are.” She pushed the cover-wedge into the seem of the elevator door. A tiny opening formed, and she jammed in her fingers.

She let the notebook fall to the floor, pulling open the two sides of the door, From the floor placard she could see below, it seemed she’d gotten stuck between floors 4 and 3. She braced against both sides of the door, forcing it open all the way. “Let’s go.” She let Celene get down separately; they really weren’t far from the floor.

It was quiet. At some point, some kind of emergency lights had cut on, and the hall was bathed in red-orange light flashing at odd intervals. She and Celene seemed alone in the building, even though she knew that was not the case. “Where is everybody?”

The passed by a number of rooms with the doors closed; she tried a knob, spurned on by the silence, but it didn’t turn. _They’re locked?_ She’d never seen a locked hospital room before. Wasn’t that dangerous?

The wider ICU areas were closed off with metal shutters. Why was everything closed?

She turned her head and froze.

At the end of the hallway—how had she not noticed it before? Light flickered off the creature, ricocheting off the walls and crawling across the floor. The creature was completely still, though it had obviously seen her by the way the white voids of its eyes burred into her from 30 feet away. Faintly, she could smell petrichor. She’d mistaken the buzzing for the filaments of the emergency lights.

Her eyes drifted to Celene as she stood frozen, the tiny cat exposed on the floor. “Get off the floor,” she whispered as Spindly Legs buzzed menacingly at the end of the hallway. She reached backwards into her backpack, her hand closing around the scepter.

“What?” The cat hissed, fur puffed up aggressively. She wondered if she could feel the tingle of electricity like she could.

Rory’s eyes didn’t move from the monster’s oversized form contorted unnaturally to fit in the boxy hospital corridor. She brought the scepter before herself. “ _Get off the floor.”_

Celene bristled, leaping up into an abandoned laundry cart.

The movement seemed to restart time. The creature shrieked, and began tearing down the hallway.

Her heart leapt. _“Boreas Star Power, Make-up!”_

Light, negative like stars under a blacklight cask blinding through the room. Ribbons of power circled her limbs, and then there she was in her shiny new existence.

Sailor Boreas grounded her boots, watching intently as the light cleared and the monster ceased its flinching. You would think this guy would be used to crazy light shows. She cast her scepter towards her feet, getting ready to jump. This…was going to be draining.

But dang if it didn’t look cool.

“Dire Stellar Gust!” She held the wind below her feet, letting it hold her up. She might revel more in the sensation of what was basically flight if there wasn’t a big scare lightning guy looking ready to get at her.

Celene peeked out of the laundry basket. “Aurora, that’s brilliant!”

“It’s pretty good, right?” She yelped as she clumsily dove out of the way, Spindly shooting forward to strike out with an arm. _Too bad my attacks are real bad against this guy!_

Sailor Boreas glanced around—what was his angle? Before, he had gone for a crowded area, so he was probably here for the patients. She glanced to the locked doors. At least he can’t get in there. But she had to do something, and this thing wasn’t affected by her.

Dang, I need to get the others. Why can’t cell phones get carried over into the dimensional pocket that the rest of this uniform comes from?

She eyed the hall. At the opposite end, she could see a room labeled Magnetic Resonance Imaging. An MRI. Her eyes widened. This thing was electric—didn’t magnetics disrupt electrical transmission? _If I could get it down there…_

Crouching, she let the wind carry her down the hall, the sting of electricity searing her back as Spindly Legs dove into the negative space behind her. “Dire Stellar Gust!” The attack crashed over the monster, holding it back only a moment as it kept advancing.

She winced. She could feel the wind faltering under her feet, and she struggled to keep it up. “All right, big guy,” she could hear him thundering behind her, and her pulse pounded. “Just follow the leader—”

“AURORA—”

She didn’t hear the warning in time as she flung the door open. In an instant, she was smacked with a bone-trembling force, flung forward to collide with the machine.

\--

Mallory missed when she could only hear the frantic thump on her boots on the tile. Ahead, a red burst flashed in the hall; at least some kind of power was running. Still, it didn’t help the sight of nurses frantically scrambling from one room to the other, the hospital’s quiet totally abandoned. That horrid sound, the wailing B note cried out from every room.

“Continue compressions,” one nurse shouted. “ _And we need more manual tanks!”_

The realization steeled over her like ice on a windshield. _Yeah, some people did need the power on all the time._ She stood uselessly in the chaos. Weren’t there backup generators for this kind of thing?

A thump echoed from above. Her gaze flew up, and there were alarmed twitters from the nursing staff as drywall dusted down. Something was up there. _You only get one guess._

As she looked back down, she caught Carmen’s eyes in one of the rooms. She stood hunched over a cot, arms held stiff as her palms pressed down on someone’s chest in rhythmic pumps. Carmen peered across at her, grimacing. The message was clear: _I can’t help._

Mallory cursed. She got it, though. There were more people who needed saving here than could be helped with some shiny attack patterns. Turning, she fled down the hall, keeping her eyes peeled for the nearest staircase. There!

Her summance rang up through the stairwell. She sounded out of breath and maybe drunk. She emerged onto floor three as Sailor Decima. She thought she could feel the difference, and more than there merely being more ruffles in her skirt. She felt stronger than before.

There was a sort of sonic noise, like the drill at the state approved dentist’s office. She followed the sound out to the farthest hall. She slowed as she saw it hunched over in the middle of the hall. It was worse in person than it had been on the CCTV. It had the presence of a live wire, too bright to get close. It appeared to be…plugged into the wall? With light

There was a noise. “Sailor Decima!” Mallory spotted Celene, peering out of a laundry basket, of all things. “Boreas is in there!”

There was a door in between her and the monster. She was going to have to get right up on it in order to do anything. Could she sneak by it?

“On it.” She backed up as slowly as possible until she reached the far wall, where she shimmied along. Heart protesting (hell no, it didn’t sign up for this,) she waited until she felt the frame of the door at her fingertips, and then slipped through. She swore under her breath, seeing Rory crumpled against a huge, tube-like machine. “Okay,” she said, relaxing a bit when the girl gave her a painful looking salute, “that thing is definitely some sort of cryptid. I mean it this time.”

“Sorry,” Rory said, struggling to get up on her side. “Underestimated that thing; it really doesn’t care about wind.”

Mallory pulled her to stand, letting Rory brace across her shoulders. “It’s going to care about my foot in its ass in about a minute.”

“I respect your level of confidence, given that this thing is three times your size and could easily smear you across the floor.”

“Unwarranted confidence is my actual superpower— _whoops_!” She scrambled backwards, Rory hanging onto her awkwardly as the monster apparently got bored with charging its phone. “Done with the appetizer, I guess.”

Rory staggered, dialoguing herself as the creature neared. She held out a hand. “Dire Stellar Gust!”

Yeah, not great—the creature merely winced back, the windy shrapnel passing through it harmlessly. It let out an intense revving sound.

Rory said, “No, no—”

The wave smacked into them, then pulled. Mallory was thrown at how effectively it floored her—the strength fled her limbs like she’d stood up too fast, an almost pleasant numbness tingling across her prefrontal cortex except that it might have been about to kill them.

It seemed thrilled, its electric body dancing with light. Quickly, she shot an arm out, pointing two fingers. “ _Destiny Chain_!”

The chain passed through it; it looked the smallest bit discomforted before continuing. “Hey now,” she gritted out grimly, “you’re not allowed to be resistant to all of us. That’s, like, cheating or something.”

It hissed, the wave still going. Crap, the weakness was worsening; she might be about to pass out.

Then, abruptly, it stopped. It shuddered in the air like a bad 4D film.

\--

“No, no, come on!” The Professor banged a fist on the desktop.

_“I told you to be careful about over-utilizing the prototypes; don’t you care at all? Something’s overloading it—"_

She dragged the lever back—

\--

The light show cut out. As they watched, Mallory’s vision clouded with black spots, Spindly sunk _up into the air_ and vanished.

Mallory couldn’t help but cry out. “Okay, what? What just happened?”

Rory frowned.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick note: In the original story, I established that this series takes place in around 2030, and there were a few references to it being in the future. I am retconing that; this story and the previous now take place in 2005.
> 
> Narma's views about the Seattle fashion scene are therefore no longer accurate, but make more sense in the context of the recent past, so. Something to keep in mind!
> 
> Thanks for reading. :)

**Episode 3: Going Somewhere? Or, the Rallying of the Observers**

Mallory dragged Rory down onto the lower floors Celene padding anxiously behind. Moments after the creature had gone, the normal flow of electricity was restored, and the elevator resumed its route. Which was good, because she didn’t think Rory was going to be able to make the trip down the stairs. Broken ribs for sure.

“Good thing I’m in a hospital already,” Rory chuckled, then wheezed. She peered forlornly back at the room they had left, where the machine had a slight dent but otherwise seemed unharmed. “I was going to lead that thing into charging the MRI. It’s basically a giant magnet.”

And the thing clearly had some sort of electrical properties. She nodded, patting Rory’s shoulder soothingly. “It was a good plan.” Not that it mattered now.

She still didn’t know how Spindly Legs kept vanishing into thin air. It didn’t make any sense. It had to go _somewhere_.

They untransformed, and Mallory lowered Rory’s backpack for their third party-member to climb inside. “Sorry. Time to get back in the bag.”

Celene grumbled, but since she fitted she sitted. Just Little Cat Things.™

They loaded off the elevator to the second floor, where she carried Rory about halfway down the hall before going after Carmen herself.

Things seemed to have calmed down. There was no longer that disruptive B-note ringing in the halls, but it didn’t look like everything had gone smoothly. There was a nurse crying in the hallway, head in her hands. Flanks of others filed from room to room with clipboards like a procession.

When she saw Carmen, the girl was wiping red eyes, sweat glistening on her forehead. She looked positively wrecked. Still, she stood tall shoulders straight in a way that reminded Mallory that she’d spent more time as a soldier than she had. “Hey,” she walked up to her as she neared, voice thin. “What happened? Did you beat it?”

_Wish I had better news._ She shifted awkwardly. “No. It disappeared. We’re not even sure what it was doing—dude just plugged into the wall and then whammied us. If it was just looking for electricity, why come here? There’s a power plant on the other side of the city.”

Carmen groaned, bringing her hand to her forehead. “The _outlets_ , of course.”

Mallory took a step back. “Am I missing something?”

“It used the outlets as a conduit to access the medical equipment. Anyone who was plugged up to anything at the time of the attack is now comatose.”

She stiffened. “Oh. Shit.” Even the ER patients were probably hooked up to _something._ That had to be, like, _everyone._

Carmen rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Luckily, the hospital is hooked up to two separate grids, and so half of the building was excluded.”

She clenched her fist. And she’d been thinking they’d gotten off light. “That’s still a hell of a lot of people.” Not to mention whatever horror show had gone on in the rooms behind them.

Carmen followed her gaze, and her expression crumpled. “We saved some of them,” she said, “but not all of them.”

“I’m sorry.” A moment of silence hung in the air, but the static of restlessness on her chest was writhing. “We’ve got to figure out what’s going on here.”

They all headed for the exit, nothing left to be done. Mallory thought at the last second to check on the intensive care unit, nervous about what a double dose of energy sucking. She also told Gwen she was going to come back, crap, she’d forgotten about that.

She flung open the shutters with more urgency.

The room was empty of anyone up-right.

The coma patients seem unchanged, on a positive note, but Gwen was nowhere to be seen. _She left anyways._ Mallory couldn’t help but be annoyed; she’d had more questions she wanted to ask, and she didn’t appreciate her very simple instructions being ignored anyways.

Frowning, she peered towards the beds. Maybe she could leave a note with this ‘Gina’ and instructing her to contact her back later. She examined the charts in the general area Gwen had indicated, looking to identify her friend. And the next one, and the next one.

After several moments, Mallory turned to a haggard nurse, suspicions building. “Excuse me,” she huffed. “Which one of these patients is a ‘Gina?’”

The woman paused, then shook her head, bags under her eyes. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe a Gina has come in yet. We’re working on transitioning the new patients in, but—"

Mallory had stopped listening.

There was not a single ‘Gina’ in this ICU.

She slammed her hands down on the side table, causing the nurse to jump.

Rory and Carmen, hovering awkwardly by the entrance, stared in at her. “Um. Girl, you good?”

Mallory shook from head to combat boots. “I’ve been freaking _bamboozled_!”

\--

On the other side of the city, Narma carried her print-out to the gate. She tried her best to avoid getting any wrinkles in her finest kurti as she grasped her portfolio protectively to her chest. She held the paper out to the security guard working the hut. “I’m here for an interview.”

He nodded her through, and she entered the gates.

The institute was very modern, all clean lines and soft, fashionable gray paints. She moved through the courtyard with a sort of awe, entering the building even though something inside her said nope, you are not meant to be here, they have called you by mistake.

“Welcome,” said a young man by the entrance, typing away at his computer. He peered up to her, and she already felt underdressed compared to his designer glasses and crisp black suit. “How can I help you?”

She gingerly moved to the front desk, shaking the tension out of her shoulders. She was never this timid! She needed to buckle down and get with it if she wanted to impress these people. “My name is Narma Anand. I’m here for the internship? The interview, I mean. I haven’t gotten it yet.”

The clerk sat back, giving her a crisp nod. “Ah, I see. Mrs. Greenwood is expecting you on floor 4. Her office is straight back; you can’t miss it. She should call you back when she’d ready for you.”

She thanked him, and took the elevator up.

Holy crap, holy crap! This was actually happening! It seemed like a bit of incredible luck when the Institute had decided to expand their set-up to Seattle, but she never thought she’d have an opportunity like this. She didn’t even know they had junior internships.

She walked briskly to the office at the end of the hall, passing mannequins in mid-dress in various styles as their stylists worked around them. About half of the space was actual office cubicles, the rest housing rows and rows of sewing machines. The building was so huge; she couldn’t even image what all of the space was used for.

When she reached the office at the end, there were other people waiting. Interviews must have been running behind. She took a seat, mentally running through everything she wanted to mention to make a good impression.

After a few moments, one boy about her age exited the office, pausing before walking out. “Sarah Bowling, you’re up. Narma Anand, you’re next.”

A girl with bright red hair got up behind her, walking stiffly into the office. Narma drummed her fingers, the nerves surfacing the longer she waited for her turn in the office. After a moment or two, she made up her mind and removed her phone from her pocket. After making sure it was on silent, she brought up the messenger.

_Hey sorry if this timing is a little weird_

_Thing is, I got this interview at the fashion institute_

_Have you heard of it?_

_Anyway its now and I’m kind of freaking out_

Her gaze lingered anticipatorially over the screen, wondering if it was too weird to be messaging Manuel about this. Sure, they’d spoken a lot at the shop, but they hadn’t spoken outside that bubble. Actually, this was probably a mistake, just going off on him out of the blue, he probably thought she was super annoying—

_Oh, hey there_

_I was hoping I would hear from you soon_

_Though, this isn’t exactly what I was expecting_

Narma took a breath. Okay, he didn’t…seem annoyed? Just surprised, maybe.

_Yes, sorry. I wanted to talk to someone about this_

_But I didn’t want to mention it to my friends yet_

_In case it didn’t work out. Jinxing it, you know?_

_Not that you’re like a last resort!!_

_You’re great and your hair is excellent_

Narma winced. _Krishna!_

_you’re just like an objective third party or something_

_I’m sorry, this is horrible_

_please forget I said everything I just said_

_so how is your morning? doing well?_

_lol alright, then, consider my memory wiped_

_a bit slow_

_you’d think we’d be busier on a saturday morning_

_I’m an idiot; of course you’re working right now!_

_just excuse me whilst I make myself a menace_

_trust me, I would much rather be talking to you than anything else_

_Heat reared its ugly head in her cheeks._

_You cad; how could you, flustering me before_

_I’m meant to be making myself seem competent!_

_And what about you? A message from a pretty girl_

_out of nowhere and I am supposed to be_

_making some guys latte?_

_I’ll be distracted all day!_

_I’m gonna sue_

Narma giggled. She coughed as another girl in the office peered over to her, brow raised.

_so, an interview?_

_yeah they got this fancy internship_

_it would look really good in my portfolio_

_but these guys are big dogs_

_and I’m trying to get it together but I feel like_

_I’ve been sitting in this office for eons_

_as often as you have that sketchbook in here?_

_I’m sure you’re going to do great_

_if you can charm me, those guys stand no chance_

_I’m a steel wall, an absolute beacon of indifference_

_only wooed by superior skill_

_Oh, you wait for that date buddy, I’m show you wooing_

_“I’m show” you wil_ l

Confused, Narma ready back over the last message before flushing.

_HUSH YOU_

_OH CRAP they just called me_

_Good luck. 😊_

She turned her phone off, smoothing her dress as she made for the office door.

Inside, a woman sat at a desk with her chair caddy-cornered, file folders spilling out over her desk. Photographs on the will behind showed dramatic, avant-garde pieces in bright jewel tones; from her research, Narma knew these designs to be the work of Mrs. Greenwood herself.

“Please close the door behind yourself.”

At the woman’s prompting, Narma reached behind and pulled the door shut with a soft click. Mrs. Greenwood had an impeccable 3-peice suit in glen check, with an emerald scarf that perfectly drew the eye. "Ms. Anand, I presume? I'm happy to see that you made it. With the timing of your application, it would seem that we almost missed you."

Yikes, mentioning the timing right off the bat? Not a good sign.

The woman stood, which Narma hadn't expected and maybe she was a little too enthusiastic shaking her hand. The hand was firm, and cool with age. "It's a real honor to meet you. I hope you'll understand that is not due to lack of interest. I wasn't aware of the position until very close to the deadline, I'm afraid. I'm just happy to be able to have this opportunity."

Mrs. Greenwood sat back down in her chair, gesturing over for Narma's portfolio. Taken aback, Narma slapped the folder into her hand, the file bowing under the weight. "Yes, these things do happen." She flipped open the folder, peering over stretches and photographs of her work.

Narma squirmed in the chair she'd taken, struggling to discern her reaction. Manuel's quip about being a steelwall of indifference came to mind.

"Your skill repertoire is quite impressive for your age," she said off-handedly. "I do want to touch base with you to make sure you understand the nature of this internship."

Narma raised her hands. "I know that this is going to be mostly a gopher position; I get that. A lot of completing orders, assisting designers in residence with their chores. Even so, I know how much weight a credential with your name on it would carry in anyone's portfolio. You are one of the most innovative design schools in the country, after all. I can only imagine how much even a temporary position such as this would have to teach anyone about the business." Thank goodness this woman seemed willing to give her a path to follow; if she kept going she was surely just going to keep tripping over herself.

Mrs. Greenwood eyed her, pulling out a couple of her designs.

She’d included a real mixed bag, though the majority of her work incorporated at least aspects of traditional fashion; a lot of saris and kurtis, salwar suits, of both more classic and loose design interpretations.

“I glad you understand the significance of this opportunity, You may have noticed, in the application online, we did not request a cover letter or statement of intentions—that is because our acceptance into these limited positions is as much based on passion as it is portfolio. I’ve found that that quality is much easier to gauge in person. Tell me. You seem to have put a lot of thought into this, even on the limited notice. What are your long-term goals in the industry?”

Whoa, this was actually a lot more intense than she’d been anticipating, but she got it. There had to be tons of people going for this. “I…want to make a name for myself locally first, possibly opening a shop? But long-term I would want to work internationally. Though I would still want to be based here in Seattle. Of course, if somehow those things happened in the opposite order, I’d be just as happy.” She chuckled a little, hoping the frog in her throat would get some freaking chill and settle already.

“Is there a reason in particular you’d want to remain based in Seattle? I’m curious about your motivations.”

A dozen things flashed through her mind: sharing lunch with Rory on the roof in middle school; her parents, who would be heart-broken if she moved to New York or L.A; Manuel, the conversation they’d left off with his cute little smiley face. Fighting with the girls, too, the Egeria scepter in her tote bag. They needed her here to defend against whatever threats might gravitate to them. It struck her suddenly: how long would they be bound to that task? Would they be obligated to fight forever, their true identities secrets they would take to their graves, until whatever next life might await them?

Narma wanted to scream. This was supposed to be an interview for a summer job. It wasn’t meant to give her an existential crisis!

Mrs. Greenwood frowned at her. “Ms. Anand?”

“Sorry,” Narma burst out. “Just a big question.” She decided to stick with the most business-oriented reason she wanted to stay. No reason to drag her prospective boss into her life drama, though it just kept getting more dramatic. “I really think that the local fashion scene is starving for Indian traditional styles. Not to mention all that the Indian cultural fashion as to offer for the world in general.”

She really wanted to say _‘middle-eastern,’_ and hated that she had to censor her meaning. In the current day and age, there was too much distrust; she never knew how something as innocent as a fashion-based cultural exchange might set some people on edge.

She wrung her hands in the side of her kurti. She hoped Mrs. Greenwood wasn’t one of those people.

She clarified, “I think that having more staples of such in Seattle would provide an outlet of integration for the Indian families living here. I know my mother always has to order her clothes from outside the city because the boutiques that offer Indian clothing locally only offer them in very limited sizes and styles. That’s the major direction I’m coming from, I guess.”

The woman tucked a silver lock behind her ear. She had the aura of some kind of fashionable wizard, wise and intimidating. She nodded slowly. “I have to say, I like what I’ve seen here, and I think there will certainly be a spot for you here in the program.”

Narma’s heart leapt in her chest. Wait, she was just going to decide right now? “T-that’s fantastic! Thank you so much for this opportunity!”

This had to be some kind of too-good-to-be-true scenario, right? There's no way they would just accept her straight out.

Mrs. Greenwood smiled. "I appreciate that you have such a clear vision; that’s unusual for someone so young in the business. I think that this internship is going to be a great boon for you as you start looking into opening your own business. We've also got some great business seminars that will be taking place over the summer you might be able to sit in on, and our science division has some exciting guests. My one piece of advice is that you make the most of the experience. I look forward to working with you."

No catch.

They shook hands, and Narma exited the building in a sort of delirium. Once she had floated through the exiting gate, her senses caught up with her and clutched her fists close to her chest. " _YES_!"

She scrambled to pull out her phone, tucking her portfolio into her message bag. She brought up her chat with Rory.

_Girl_

_GIRL!_

_You'll never guess what just happened!!_

_Oh no! did you get caught in the blackout too?_

_Narma stopped. The smile slowly dropped of her face._

_No?_

_Why? What happened?_

\--

The following morning was bright white and semi-cool. It was hard to believe that this was the same city that had poured rain the previous night, the trees dripping, the desperate hospital staff working through the night.

Carmen had thought about going back after they had left at midday, though she wasn't actually sure they allowed people to volunteer outside of an emergency situation.

Breathless, she pushed her bike through the park, the obliviously beautiful morning stretching out before her in shades of green. The package she needed to deliver for her father hung in a red drawstring bag from her shoulder, after-rain curling upward as fog on the path. Her father always had a million of these little tasks, and she could never bring herself to refuse when he asked. He had an important business to run—he reminded her everyday—and it felt like these errands were her own duty to the household.

If she did suggest an assistant, the way Narma had suggested...wouldn't that make her ungrateful?

She'd left the house pedaling but it was so lovely that she had abandoned the bike, desperate for the fresh air and morning calm like a dying man running towards an oasis. She pushed the bike along the path, taking in the sunlight as it filtered through the park trees, leaving lacy patterns on the walkway.

Out of nowhere, pushing the bike became a lot more difficult—stopping, Carmen looked down to see the chain broken, one of the links detached from the whole. The entire chain had become a tangled mess. No wonder!

She could probably fix this, but she would at least need a screwdriver if she didn’t have to replace the chain entirely. It seemed she was going to be walking home no matter what. “Man…”

“Sorry about that.”

Carmen blinked, turning to peer at the path behind her.

There was a girl sitting on a nearby bench. She was looking to the sky, but she seemed to be the only one around, so it had to have been her who had spoken.

Carmen took a step back towards her, perplexed. “Were you…talking to me?”

The girl’s gaze dropped, and she turned towards Carmen, though she still wasn’t looking right at her. “Yes,” she said. Straight-forward, at least. “Your bike. I didn’t mean to break it. I wanted to talk to you, so I threw a stick into the wheel to stop you. I’m sorry.” Her inflection was sort of…hm. Flat? Paired with the highness of her voice, it reminded Carmen of the detached pleasantness of a flight attendant.

Carmen looked down at her defunct bike. That was just…blatantly untrue? She was sure she would have noticed the girl earlier if she had moved. Also, the likelihood of her being able to throw a stick with enough force and accuracy to break her bike chain? At that trajectory, even? Maybe not impossible, but very, very unlikely. Why lie about it?

Carmen frowned, watching the way the girl’s gaze shied away from her own. Avoiding eye contact? Hm.

It occurred to Carmen that perhaps this girl was just very, very confused. Slowly, she said, “It’s…alright. No harm done.” No reason to argue whether this girl had actually committed the crime she had confessed to.

It was clear how Carmen had missed her at first, given how easily she blended in with the scenery. Her hair was dyed a pastel, spring-green color Carmen didn't know hair dye came in. She seemed immersed in the atmosphere: no phone, no books to read, no music. Just sitting there. Carmen noticed two of her fingers worrying a bead on the fringe of her shirt back and forth, back and forth.

Carmen glanced around the park, but there was no other movement except the breeze rustling the foliage around them. "Are you here...all alone?" 

Maybe it was a weird question. The girl seemed to be around Carmen's age; there shouldn't have been a problem with her sitting in the park by herself. Still, something about it didn't sit right with Carmen. Perhaps it was a harmony thing? She just got the sense this girl shouldn't have to be alone.

The girl kicked her legs, looking back the way Carmen had come. Framed by morning mist, a plasticine structure sat tucked in along the side of the path, near the center of the park. "I was supposed to be spending the day in the greenhouse, but then I didn't want to be there anymore so I came out here." Eyes brightening, the girl suddenly looked Carmen in the face and thrust out her hand. "My name is Sylvia."

Even now, Sylvia’s eyes twitched, seemingly wanting to dart away. She must have really been trying, if she was enduring something that made her so uncomfortable. Besides, even if this was one of the most unexpected first conversations Carmen had had, the girl seemed nice enough. Carmen reached out and firmly shook her hand. "It's nice to meet you, Sylvia. I’m Carmen.”

They stopped shaking after a little too long. Sylvia grinned, her gaze darting away for a long moment before snapping back, eyes glittering. She said, still over-enunciating, "Would you like to see my beetles?"

Carmen leaned back a bit, eyeing the pocket of the girl's overalls warily. "Um. Beetles?"

Sylvia examined the bench around her with a bright smile, before slowing. She looked back up, face fallen. "I don't have them with me."

_Whew_. She could admit she was a bit relieved. She forced a smile. “Another time, then.”

The girl’s gaze drifted away again, as if she were seeing into somewhere else. She tucked a long, wavy lock behind her ear in a delicate motion.

Perhaps she was just lonely.

"You look bothered."

Carmen blinked, bringing herself back to the conversation shed been having. As she registered the girls words, something in her deflated. "Oh...do I?"

"You have a really discordant aura," she stated matter-of-factly. "You should talk about it." She paused. "If you want."

"Oh. I just...I guess I'm just stressed out about...I don't know. It's just personal issues." Carmen cocked her hip, leading her bike to lean against the bench. She wasn't totally comfortable talking to a stranger about this; she hadn't fully delved into the way she was feeling now herself. But maybe the fact that this was someone who didn't really know might make it easier?

"I suppose it’s because I have this pressure on me," she pantomimed the crushing weight in her chest into something literal, bringing her hands to press down towards her. “And it’s not even something I care about.”

Pointedly, Sylvia skootched over. Carmen flopped onto the bench. "What kind of pressure?"

At the dinner table the previous night, and with increasing frequency, her father had brought up how he wanted her to adopt the business. That was already a thought that brought the anxiety crawling up her back, as spending more time with the arrogant, wandering-handed crew of entrepreneurs was just the last thing she wanted for herself. Every day, though, her father put so much effort into his work. She knew he had made sacrifices. Who was she to throw those away?

Still, any mental ideations of herself going down that path just…hit a wall. It was a no-through road, a future she couldn’t even fathom undertaking.

“My father is a prevalent businessman,” she explained. “And he just…want me to take after him? But I’m not interested in doing that at all.” She sighed. “You know. Just family things.”

“Family.” Sylvia didn’t elaborate, but she seemed to muse on the word, peering off into the gardens with a bit more distance.

“I think I want to be a nurse,” she said suddenly, and found it was true. It had been lingering in the back of her mind all morning. When she’d been rallied in to help with the life support patients, she hadn’t been able to help all of them.

But she had helped some. It was quite possible there were some people alive right now that wouldn’t have been if she hadn’t been there, and that knowledge spoke to something profound in her. It felt similar to the satisfaction she’d come to find in fighting as Sailor Concordia, but it was helping people without the violence.

A knot of familiar anxiety tightened in her gut. “My father would be so disappointed, though. He’s been talking about this for years.”

"Hm." Sylvia tilted her head consideringly, shade from the trees above falling across her face. "It sounds like he’s been doing a lot of talking. Have _you_ been talking? To him, I mean."

Carmen crossed her hands in her lap. From above, a leaf became dislodged by the spring breeze and floated down to graze her hand. She caught it. "I'm not sure how to, actually."

Sylvia remained stalwart and calm beside her. She brought a finger to her chin. “Hm. It sounds like you should work on that. Figuring out how to talk, before anything else. That’s important.”

“…I suppose you’re right,” Carmen assented. Wondering what you wanted to do when you grew up—that was normal. A basic question. She had been trying to work on things, but if she wasn’t able to talk to her father about normal problems, how was she supposed to address the more… _foreign_ doubts she’d been struggling with? She wasn’t sure she knew how to put those into words, either.

She jumped, and looked down to see Sylvia’s hand patting her own.

“There. I’m lending you some positive vibes.”

Carmen, caught off guard, giggled. It was silly, but that actually did make her feel a little bit better. “Oh, well thank you, then.” Her eyes drifted back to the bag hanging off her shoulder. “…I really do need to get this package delivered soon, though.”

Sylvia nodded. “Thank you for sitting with me. My sister worries when she has to leave me alone, because she has important work to do. She will be happy.” Her head lifted, eyes focusing on Carmen a final time. “I’m sorry. Can you take me to the bus stop? I’m a bit turned around.”

Carmen led Sylvia to the bus stop without a lot of additional words exchanged. Sylvia had given her a lot to think about, and she appreciated that she was somewhat able to better articulate what had been bothering her. “Thanks for stopping me earlier,” Carmen said as they pulled up under the stop’s veranda. “I think I needed to talk things through, even if I didn’t know it.”

Sylvia folded her hands before herself, rubbing the pads of her fingers in a soothing motion. A little ways behind them on the street, a bus peaked over the hill. “Perhaps we will meet again sometime. I can show you my beetles.”

Carmen’s smile tightened. Okay, so Carmen still wasn’t totally sold on seeing any beetles. “Y-yeah, maybe.”

Above them, the tiny light of the overhang flickered.

The bus came and went, Carmen waving goodbye as the vehicle pulled away. Blowing out a breath, she resumed the route she’d originally been on, pushing her bike up the street to the nearby post office. The transaction was smooth, Carmen handing over the little red box inside her bag and getting one back in return. As she was headed back out to her trashed bike, though, something changed.

Ahead, the sounds of traffic horns had begun to blare. Curious, she wheeled her bike up the street to see a massive traffic jam, a few cars caught in the middle. Examining the scene, she could see why: overhead, the traffic lights were mostly dead, occasionally flickering all three colors at once. _Oh, the power must have gone out._

Her pulse jumped speed when the implications of that caught up with her _. Oh, no **, the power went out.**_

She had barely pulled out her phone and typed a quick message to the team ( _power outage near Cal Anderson / stand by_ ) when a buzzing noise racketed through the area, and she immediately had to upgrade it.

_Monster sighting at Broadway and e st. johns_

_Requesting backup_

_Anyone there???_

\--

When in doubt, go to the police.

Mallory was plenty familiar with the station, and they recognized her enough when she walked in that she heard an officer in the back of the room groan. _That’s right, it’s me, fucker. Be afraid._ The interior of the office was appropriately cop blue and she approached the security agent with hands distinctly out of pocket and swagger enough to tell they she wasn’t there about to take shit. “Good afternoon, Jerry.”

The guard, Jerry, took a sip of his coffee and quirked a bushy eyebrow at her over the rim of his bifocals. His voice was rough-edged and weary. “You know you’re not supposed to just waltz in here, Ms. Dunbar. Especially with the Needle business a few weeks ago. Needless to say you’re still on our radar.” The twitching bags beneath his eyes revealed a barely restrained conniption. She couldn’t help but be a little proud that her appearance was able to trigger such a primal response. _That’s how you know you’ve made an impression, Mallory; visceral dread._

She sniffed. “And I respect that, Jerry. Constant vigilance. I’ve just noticed you boys have been a little shifty about the anomaly on the news. I have to wonder what you know about the power outages around the city. Seems like that thing keeps showing up.”

At any other time, she would have said it was too much of a gamble to go directly to the source when that source had the ability to arrest you. But this was vital information she was looking into.

They were on the suspects list. She needed to know how much they knew.

Jerry narrowed his eyes. “I don’t believe there have been any reports of a second outage.”

She scoffed. “People talk, Jerry. And my cousin just happens to work at the hospital downtown. She didn’t want to say anything, but people tend to worry when you come home from work crying your eyes out. They ask questions.” The lie slipped seamlessly from her lips. In all her time as a paranormal investigator, even before she had moved more to the “paranormal” side of that descriptor than the “investigator,” she had learned that nothing was more useful than a convincing lie. _You’re going to have to do better than that, Jerry._ “So,” she said. “What’s going on in this city?”

Jerry sat back, his beer belly protruding from under the table. He was the picture of a man under constant stress. “Look, you know even if we had a theory, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. The incident—”

“Incident _s_ ,” she insisted, glowering over her glasses.

_“Incidents_ ,” he grumbled, “are under police investigation. That’s confidential, understand? I’m not going to spill anything just because some girl thinks she’s Jacque Cousteau.”

“Really?” She leaned forward. “Because I heard that you guys think this might be the terrorists from the previous string of crimes.”

“ _Goddammit_.” Jerry kneaded at the bridge of his nose. “Where did you hear that, now?”

“Is it true?”

Jerry sighed. “You saw the tapes. Those same vigilantes made an appearance at the first blackout, and there were never any arrests made the first go round. What would anyone think? Wouldn’t you figure maybe those vigilantes seem to be right there anytime these things show up? In my own _personal_ opinion—don’t you dare quote me, I will sue the pants off you—I think they’re doing all this for attention. I mean, monsters? Come on. They saw that bull coming out of Japan, and they wanted a piece of the action. It’s projections, or robotics, or something.” He set his cup down on the table with a thud, the coffee sloshing onto the table. He swore, wiping the surface with a handkerchief.

Mallory pursed her lips. This had been along the line of what she had been expecting, but she didn’t like where this conversation was heading, “But now people are getting hurt,” she said lowly.

He eyed her, saying nothing, but the tightness of his jaw was confirmation enough.

“And not just minor injuries. People died in that hospital.” And at this point, the blue jacket crew were holding the four of her own accountable.

Jerry huffed, bothering his mustache. “Goes without saying, if we catch sight of those egomaniacal fanatics again, we won’t hesitate to take them down.”

Mallory swallowed, before coughing. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

Just then, two people rounded the divider leading into the office proper. Familiar eyes widened as they met hers.

Thrusting her hand out, she shouted, “You!”

Gwen untensed, apparently deciding she was not a threat. Which drove her crazy, by the way. “Oh, it’s you.” The pen and paper in her hand were left hanging by her side. Not important enough to note, apparently.

Mallory was furious, hotness roiling up to her ears. “There is _no Gina_!”

The police officer accompanying her put a hand on his hip. “You two know each other, Ms. King?” He took a step back, the professional consideration he had been giving her when they entered threatening to evaporate. Mallory tried not to take it personally. She knew more about this all than they did, after all.

“She’s just mad because I sent her on a bit of a goose chase,” Gwen strode past her, raising an eyebrow as Mallory clenched both fists. “Thank you guys, I think I got all I needed. I’ll let you know if it goes to print.”

“No problem, Sarah.”

_Sarah?!_

“Let us know if you need to set up a follow-up interview.”

“Thanks. Now.” Gwen—if that was even her real name. Was it Sarah, then? What that another lie?—turned her deep blue eyes on Mallory, who was about ready to explode. “If you want to talk this out like adults, you can meet me outside.”

Mallory tore out the station door trying to follow. “What do you think you are doing?”

Gwen(?) gave her a flat look. “The same thing you are.” She tilted her chin up. “Just trying to do some investigating.”

Mallory folded her arms. _I call bullshit._ “You lied to my face. Doesn’t really inspire confidence that you’re on the up and up, _Sarah_ ,” she hissed.

She bristled when the girl smiled, looking away from her. “Actually, you’re the one who decided to volunteer her true intentions right from the jump. Seems like a pretty risky move to me.” They locked eyes again, and the other girl smoothed her braid over her shoulder. “And it _is_ Gwen.” She almost sounded a little embarrassed about it.

Mallory’s blood pressure was suffering. Dammit, she was right, she had done that. Prompt, she pointed to the station behind them. “You understand I could just turn around right now and tell them you weren’t who you said you were.”

Gwen shrugged. “Why would my name matter?” But she continued to watch Mallory right back.

Mallory said, “Why else would you change it?”

It was silent. Gwen weaved around her, turning towards the street. Then, she said, “I suppose I couldn’t stop you. But then you’d never find out what I know.” She smiled, from the corner of her eye. “And you just couldn’t stand that, could you?” Without further delay, she turned and vanished into the crowd.

Mallory hated that she’d been read so easily. By someone she’d spoken to once? Embarrassing.

Her phone went off in her pocket. She cursed as she saw the message.

Narma had replied first.

_crap, i’m on the other side of the city!_

_no way to get there._

_anyone else?_

So, she was out. Mallory jumped in.

_roger_

_Couple blocks away_

_Try to hold it off_

\--

Energy fell away from her, and Carmen could feel the difference. This was the first time she’d transformed since the big fight with the Agents of Purity, and it felt strange to be slipping back into that coat after everything was supposed to have been over. But more than that, the constant hum of power under her skin seemed to have gone up a decibel. So this is what they meant by an upgrade.

She, as Sailor Concordia, moved out of the alley, and there it was. She was momentarily frozen—she hadn’t seen the creature before, but it made something instinctual in her say _get back,_ the way electricity danced off of it. I screeched into the air, climbing over the tops of cars, it’s pointed limbs digging into the metal.

She eyed the passengers along the road. Some were abandoning their cards, but others were packed too tight together or too scared and they cowered in their cars. I have to get that thing away from them. Swallowing, she called out to it. “You! Yes, you,” she clarified when it’s bright white face turned to her. “You’re not welcome here. You should get out before I have to make you!” She wasn’t even sure it could understand her. Was it sentient? More instinctual?

Whether it understood or not, it ignored her. Moving, it latched onto the bus. The ends of its electric hands curling into the metal. Sailor Concordia peered through the windows to the people inside. _No, that’s too many. If it activates its energy-draining ability, that’s at least two dozen more people in a coma._

For just a second, her eyes caught on a flash of green in the window. With a start, she recognized Sylvia peering out at her. Uneasily, she watched the girl’s gaze flick over her. _She won’t be able to recognize me._ Still, she couldn’t help but feel exposed, seen by someone she’d been speaking to only moments before.

For now, she had to think of a strategy. If I could weaken it enough, I might be able to use Pacification on it… might as well try being direct, She lifted her fingers, as though to conduct. “Harmonious Bellicoso!”

The ribbons of melody flowed from her and over the bus. The creature shrieked as it was torn from the top of the bus—her heart leapt as it seemed to flicker for a second, but it re-stabilized. _Ah, thought I had it._

Suddenly, the thudding of boots fell in behind her. “Hey, you decided to tango with Spindly Legs without me? I feel a little left out, got to say.”

She turned to see Mallory—or, Sailor Decima?—taking a battle stance.

Sailor Concordia adjusted her neck. “Well, you know. Thought I’d test the waters, at least.”

The mention of water apparently reminded them both of their missing teammates, and Decima sighed. “Man, I wish Nar—er, Egeria was here.”

Yeah, water would probably be helpful here, from the rundown they’d gotten on the first battle.

Decima tightened her gloved fingers into fists. “But I guess this guy could use some namastes as well.”

Concordia couldn’t help but grin a little, her professional exterior breaking to bit to let Carmen bleed through. If this had to be her duty, she was glad to be able to do it with someone who could keep her humor. “Oh, I would definitely say his feng shui is a bit off.”

Mallory didn’t seem to mind the mixed metaphor. “Guess we’ll just have to get him to move some stuff around, then. Hey, guy!” She charged towards the creature, swiftly ducking when one of its spiked limbs came flying towards her. It embedded in the ground behind her. “How about you head this way?”

Carmen straightened, stumbling back as the creature skittered towards her team mate. Trying to draw it out, good. Eying her way down the lane, she spotted a pair of streetlamps, and a plan began to form. “Keep it moving!”

She shrieked as, in a motion not unlike the spastic leap of a grasshopper, the creature rounded and had boxed her in against the building. She screamed as it sent out a surge of energy—just before the pull had really grabbed her, Decima appeared behind it. Carmen couldn’t see what was happening, but the thing began screaming and backed away.

Visible now, Mallory was holding a metal bar, only about as big as a ruler. Carmen shook the residual weakness from her limbs. “What is that?”

“It’s a magnet,” Mallory looked proud of herself. “Ror—uh, Boreas had this great idea at the hospital—”

There was little time to elaborate as the creature clawed back up the street, its arms hooking viciously into the street around the cars. Carmen immediately brought her arms up, conducting another blast. “Harmonious Bellicoso!”

The blast struck into it, the creature flinching against the onslaught as it dug into the asphalt.

“If we can keep working it back…” she gestured to the streetlamps in the distance, hoping Mallory would take the hint. She didn’t want to say it out loud, just in case the creature could understand them more than it let on.

“Roger.”

They darted down the street on opposite sides, a little bit at a time. The creature shot after them, stance wide an almost crab-like in a way that shouldn’t have been terrifying, but the way its limbs skewered anything that trampled over filled her with anxiety. Her heart pounded, sure she was going to hear the sickening squish of sharp-and-solid breaking through something organic.

It seemed to grow more and more agitated as they moved it down the street, the humming growing in pitch with its frenzied energy. Carmen moved to the end of the street, taking the center where cars had been long diverted. She held her ground as “Spindly Legs” tore up the street towards her. _Come on._

The pulse of energy was sucked up the street like waves pulling back into the sea. Her legs shook, but she kept herself standing. She dealt with worse than this. The streetlights flickered, and the bus’s emergency alarms began to scream out.

“Hey!” She could hear Decima calling out to the creature behind her.

“Get ready.” Carmen took a few steps back, staggering.

The creature was nearly upon her, vibrating with violent energy.

She forced her arms out, as she watched Mallory as Decima move into position, fidgeting a few steps nervously back and forth. She raised her voice, forcing it even as her faltering strength sapped her voice. It wanted energy? _Let’s give you what you want._ “Mesmeric Pacification!”

The calming aura was absorbed by the creature and it’s pull damped to a molasses-slow slurp as is slumped over. From the side, Decima’s attack rang out _—“Destiny chain!”_

The attack was used for its most literal purpose: though the chain itself usually couldn’t do much damage, it was perfectly suited for keeping something in place, if only for a moment.

The chain wrapped around one street lamp, then around the one on the opposite side of the street—trapping Spindly in between them. It screeched, the noise bouncing off the surround buildings.

Mallory tossed her a second of the magnetic bars she had acquired, and it was time to move. Bracing herself on her knee, Carmen thrust the bar forward, holding it even against the hum.

Spindly Legs screamed, going fuzzy. It’s frequency glitched, the distortion intensifying until it disappeared. Carmen let her arm slacken, breathing heavily. Is…that it? Did we kill it?

“Alley-oop.”

Carmen startled as Mallory hooked an arm under hers, lifting her up to lean against her shoulder.

“Good work. You think you can stand?”

“Yeah.” Carmen leant against the other girl, slightly awkward due to her being several inches taller.

Mallory glanced out over the road, surveying the damage. “Hey, we should move. We’ve got company.”

For a dread-filled second, Carmen/Concordia thought that Spindly Legs had somehow reconfigured from its disintegration. But no. Following Decima’s gaze, Concordia saw civilians staring down the lane at them curiously, chattering amongst themselves. She’d never been noticed, it felt like; not by a crowd.

Near the center, she recognized a notable figure, her spring-green hair billowing behind her. She watched them dead-on, not diverting her eyes. A shiver went up Carmen’s spine. It had never made her so uneasy to be seen.

\--

To say Rory could have been more comfortable was an understatement.

She exited church with a stance anyone would have called awkward—the wrapping around her ribs made her just a little too stiff to be called natural.

Her mother furrowed her brows at her, her face shadowed by the brim of her hat. “Are you sure you’re okay, baby? You’ve been real quiet today.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking about what we’re going to do this summer.”

That was somewhat true. Narma had texted her ecstatic last night about how she’d gotten the internship at the Fashion Institute. Which was great! She was super happy for her!

But it did mean she wasn’t going to be seeing as much of her over the summer months. That sucked; for the previous three years they had gotten up to all kinds of stuff during the summer months, pretty much inseparable. Guess now, she was going to have to find something else to do.

_we’ll still spend time together! don’t doubt!_

She sighed. Plus, the monsters were back. Couldn’t they chill for like, a couple more months? Obviously, these guys had never heard of summer break.

Mama stared at her for a moment, before seeming to concede. “Well, alright. I hope you plan to stick around—the house is so empty without Tyrell already.”

Rory smiled. “No big adventures planned right now. Hey, has Tyrell mentioned when he’s coming back into town?”

Mama sighed, blotting her forehead with the back of her hand. It was really too warm for fancy clothes, but church was church. “Not yet, That boy stays so busy.”

Just then, Rory remembered feeling the buzz of her phone going off during the sermon. Pulling it from her purse, her heart jumped when she noticed it was the group chat that had pulled up.

Crap—that was nearly forty minutes ago! If they were still transformed, they wouldn’t be able to answer! It wasn’t too far from here. She looked back to her mother, who gazed across curiously when she’d stopped on the sidewalk. “Hey—I just remembered, I left my homework at my friends house, she just texted me. Meet you at home?”

Mama straightened. “…I suppose. Hey, maybe we can cook up that roast for dinner tonight. Don’t be too long.”

Rory gave her a thumbs up, but her mind was already elsewhere. “Sounds good. Bye!”

Turning, she took off, trying to look casual. As soon as she thought she was out of sight, she took to the alley and transformed. _Can’t free-run in heels!_

Crossing the city rooftops she slowed when she came the intersection Carmen had texted about. Traffic was obviously in some sort of bind, but the lights were back on. Scanning the area, she spied Carmen and Mallory standing off to the side, whispering to one another. After making sure the coast was clear, she dropped from the roof and waved a hand to catch their attention. She untransformed. “Hey, just saw the text. What happened?”

Mallory and Carmen looked at each other. “That creature came back,” Carmen said quietly, “but we got it under control.”

Mallory turned to Rory more directly. “I _knew_ your magnet plan had merit. We were able to trap it.”

Rory perked up. “Wait, you killed it?”

The investigator scoffed, adjusting her glasses. “It vanished, but I doubt this is over. I miss when these things were made out of smoke.”

Rory glanced away. Man, she hadn’t felt helpless like this in a while. How long could they keep this up? Whatever was happening in the city, it was worse than the pithos had been by a mile.

Her gaze drifted down the alley, the sounds of Mallory discussing elaborate energy tracking systems with Carmen drifting in and out of her awareness. Down the way, she caught another sound, one of glass rolling on the pavement.

Peering down through the opposite side of the alley, she could see two guys standing very close. They appeared to be arguing, which didn’t make her any more comfortable with the faded prison tats on their arms. As she watched, one guy passed a package across to the other, which were exchanged for a bundle of cash and a shove. A third guy entered the alley, leaning against the wall as the aggressive-sounding tones rasped down to her.

There was something distinctly off about the scene, and she eyed the bundle. She really doubted that was a package of pork cutlets.

She followed Mallory and Carmen down the street as they departed the alley. She couldn’t shake the sour feeling the scene left in her stomach.

Something had to be done about this.

\--

_Damn._ She slammed her fist down on the work-table, the screens registering the loss of signal as her personal transmitter was discombobulated. Grimly, the Professor watched the power level hover at a faint level two. “I don’t imagine…”

“It’s nowhere near enough,” The Benefactor scoffed from the screen, brushing her hair behind her ear. Over the feed, she could see her leafing through a stack of folders

The lights flickered overhead, the fluorescents not as strong as they should have been, She needed to get someone in to fix them, but she’d been so preoccupied. She traced a finger over the (1) button, mourning the work she had put in.

She could feel the Benefactor’s gaze, chronicling the lost feeling she was enveloped in. She could feel a dread coiling inside her like bulb filament. All, the planning, all the time, and her creation was already failing its sworn duty?

She turned her palms up. Like witnessing a schematic, a sadistic design yet unknown to her, she couldn’t unfix her gaze. If she had given offerings of death in the name of a breakthrough and then was left with empty hands, she’d…she’d…

She couldn’t even imagine the horrors those hands might be capable of.

The Benefactor spoke sharply. “There’s no point even trying it right now. You’d just be wasting what you’ve gathered so far.” Her tone darkened. “And the price it came at. You’ve seen the news reports. It’s got to be them. You know as well as I do breaking through their secrecy is the only chance we’ve got. You’ve got to pull it together.”

Her fingers curled slowly. “It’s hard to believe such a power could even exist,”

What could outrank electric turbines, solar rays, nuclear reactors? What could make dark matter quiver by comparison? Such technology was inconceivable now, never mind 400 years from now.

This singular, extraterrestrial energy. She couldn’t imagine a more innocuous appellation.

This Cosmos Treasure Box. Whatever it was, wherever it was hidden, she would unearth it. She had nothing left she was not willing to lose.

The hatchet was always there, invisible in her hand. Whatever this cost her, she was ready to give it. Piece by tiny piece. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those that are following this, thank you so much! Your support means everything :) This is really a passion project and I'm glad that others are enjoying it too. :)

**Episode 4: Hidden Identity; Or, In the Name of Seattle!**

The blue light of her computer screen blared up at Mallory as she pulled up the last of her news feeds. National, local, police, in a few varieties to cover ground. There had to be a reason, she knew it.

Kyle groaned from the top of the bunk bed beside her. He winced through the corona of brightness cast off from her side of the room. “Seriously? It’s…”

She assumed he was checking his phone, but she knew how early it was. Unlike some people, she still had obligations to fulfill.

“…6:00 in the morning.”

“I know what time it is.” She continued to click away, running her browser extension to search all of the sites with the same criteria. “Turn over if it’s too bright.”

She entered the first criteria.

_Sarah King_

After reading through the results, there seemed to be nothing of interest. _Didn’t think so. It’s probably a straight alias, then._

She tried again, making a slight change.

_Gwen King_

After several minutes, there was still nothing. She definitely wasn’t convinced Gwen was really her first name. It was more likely another ploy to through her off. Even if it were her name, “King” might be entirely artificial. If it was fake, then she was out of luck and would have to get more information before she could go any further.

Mallory paused, staring unseeing at the screen of interest pieces and science papers. If she really had been reckless enough to let her first name split, what if she’d been that careless with the alias? Something similar, maybe.

_Gwen King…ford?_

Nothing.

_Gwen Kingston_

Hey, there’s Gwen Stefani for some reason, but nothing else. She was running out of options.

_Gwen Kingsley._

A hit.

She stopped, startled when the result spit out something on the regional law enforcement alert feed. Body jumping with sudden adrenaline, she clicked into the feed. At the top, there were two side-by-side photos.

She examined them. One was a stranger, but the other…she was younger, maybe, and had brown hair, but that was definitely Gwen. It must have been an old photo.

Victory sharp in her mind, she brought her attention back to the alert and began to read. This…didn’t seem right. Not from what she’d seen, anyway. It just didn’t add up. She frowned, beginning to grit her teeth as she read on, a theory piecing together. _There’s no way she’s that stupid. She has to know; she’d using an alias._

Coming to the end, she noted the timestamp. Eyes bulging, she slammed her fists down on her knees, yelling, “Oh, you’ve GOT to be kidding!”

Kyle, and several of her housemates gripped back at her, banging on the walls.

\--

Rory crept into the junkyard in the wee hours of the morning, when not even the barest suggestion of morning lightened the sky. It was one of the only truly abandoned places she could think of—now that the police were patrolling all over, the lot they’d used during the school year was too visible for them to keep practicing there.

Narma had been reasonably confused when she’d asked her to come alone.

Rory watched as Narma’s gray-dyed hair peeked around a nearby mountain of refuse. She looked out of place, hunched nervously in her fashionable patterned jacket and a bag hitched to her side like she was actually on the run. She relaxed when she saw her and trotted over. “Hey. Back at it again, I guess.”

“Hey.” Rory gave her a little salute. “Yeah, long as we don’t think you got anything to worry about in the losing consciousness department. We’ve pretty much all been whammied at this point, being honest.

“Oh, great,” Narma snorted.

There was something a little eerie about the junkyard, the way the darkness of the morning fell into all of its corners, its emptiness, the fact she was a little nervous that junkyard dogs were about to be a thing she wasn’t prepared for.

Narma shrugged more comfortably into her coat, rubbing at the chill on her arm. “So what’s with this secretive schtick? I kind of assumed the others would be joining us when we started up again.”

Rory’s stomach turned at having been so underhanded about this. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Narma; she did! She just…didn’t want to get anyone else involved if she could help it, and if it was just the two of them, Narma was more likely to let her keep it under wraps. “I was actually hoping to work on something a little different? Hope that’s not weird. I just thought if I was working on something a little riskier, I shouldn’t ask the others. They don’t exactly have the history to trust me with something that might sound a little crazy.”

Narma dropped her bag to the ground, her heavily lined brow rising. “…I think they trust you plenty, girl. But now you’re scaring me a little; what kind of crazy are we talking about?”

Rory waved her arms before herself. “Not _that_ crazy! It’s just…” she took a breath. “You know how that monster has been incapacitating people, right? We’ve had to work around people for the past few days while trying to take that thing down, because it’s always leaving them right in the way.” Rory dropped her own bag, lowering to her knee to begin fishing around inside it. “What I’m wondering is what if we had no other choice? What if this isn’t over, or if something else crops up, and it’s _attack with someone in the way_ or _someone gets killed_?”

She pulled out her creation. It was basically a suit, but made of cardboard, old newspapers, and leftover yarn from past projects.

Narma looked offended to even be in the presence of it. “What is that?”

“It’s some really sad body armor.”

Narma eyed the crumpled pile of brown. “I’m not sure I like where this is going.”

“We need to know what would happen if one of our attacks hit a person.”

It was something she had been thinking on a lot in the past couple days: what was the difference between using their powers on a monster and using them on a person? Would they have any effect at all? On the other end of the spectrum, was it too dangerous? What was the risk?

Of course, though she couldn’t tell Narma, she was lying about why she wanted to know.

Her stomach dropped as Narma crossed her arms. “That has happened, though. There have been times in battles when we got caught in the crossfire of one of the other’s attacks.”

Rory shook her head. “Not a direct hit, though. There have been people all over the place. Honestly, I wish we had the stuff to make one of those anatomically correct models, like they use in investigations?”

Narma stepped forward, taking the garbage suit from her. “So we’re going to be attacking each other instead.”

Rory shrugged. “Y…yeah?” She shook her hands out. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to. We can just do some normal training. I just think it’s something we should figure out eventually…?”

The other girl slowly pulled off her jacket, folding it into a neat square. She placed it in her bag. Rory made a soft noise as Narma took the bundle from her arms. “We might as well. Not like we’re got anything else to do this morning.”

Rory pumped a fist. “Yes, you’re the best.”

“Just try to minimize the bodily harm, if you would.”

They took turns, having only one of them transformed at a time. Narma went first, which maybe wasn’t the best decision as Rory’s attack had the greater risk of injury.

Covering her head, Narma took the brunt of a Dire Gust, the shrapnel sinking to the cardboard as she was dragged back, heels through the dirt.

Rory let off quickly. “Did it get you?” She eyed the pocks in the material.

“Meh,” Narma called back unhelpfully. She stepped back to the starting point, lifting her arms to examine the perforations. “They punctured pretty deep, but not all the way through. I think if I were just wearing my shirt though it would have been a problem.” She dropped her arms. “Ironically, the wind knocked the air out of me, though.”

Rory frowned slightly. “That’s…something to keep in mind, then.” But how deep was deep? Did the shrapnel remain even once the wind had vanished? She thought about the old victims of the pithos, Eddie and the others. They hadn’t seemed overly injured. But how much had the corruption been shielding them?

After trying a couple more shots, Rory changed spots with Narma and untransformed. She opted out of most of the protection gear, arguing that it wouldn’t be super effective against a water attack. She kept the chest brace, though. No need to get her bandages wet.

Moments later, Rory tried to brace herself as water poured down over her. Even holding her breath, she couldn’t breathe with the force of the deluge descended over her. Her ribs, already having to do some healing, were especially unappreciative. It was like falling a long distance, combined with pinprick distinction of rain on a roller coaster. _Yeah, I get what you meant by knocking the air out of you._ It seemed force wasn’t going to be a problem.

When the water blocking out her hearing stopped, she heard Narma call out to her. “Hey, you alright?”

Rory spit into the dirt. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Narma extracted herself from the pose she’d used to summon the attack, coming over to examine her. “Eh, at least we know that one wouldn’t do permanent damage.”

“Yeah,” Rory grinned, but a queasy sensation lingered in her stomach. “If anything should happen, we know that one is safer.”

She _had_ gotten the information she needed. She just needed to decide what she was going to do with it.

They finished up, trying ways to manipulate the water around obstacles if need be, so they could presumably avoid civilians if need be. Once they were done, Rory changed back too and they began to get their stuff back together. Her legs were actually a little shaky, but she tried not to let it on; this was her idea, and she didn’t want Narma to feel guilty about it when she was the one who’d had the more dangerous job. She pulled the towel she’d packed out of her bag, wrapping up.

Narma watched her, eyes clouded with distraction. “It’s crazy I’m not going to see you guys that much this summer. I feel like I’m just leaving you hanging to all this stuff.”

Rory paused zipping her bag. “Now, don’t be like that. It’s a great opportunity! We’re happy for you. And it ain’t like you’re going to be up there everyday of the week.” She cranked her arm out. “You’ll probably see us so often, you won’t even have time to miss us.”

She could admit to herself, though, that the meetings wouldn’t be the same if they didn’t have Narma’s sarcastic quips thrown in. And if the previous week had proven anything, not having Narma around was a strategic disadvantage. More than that, though, with the task she was now bound and determined to undertake, it was really going to suck not being able to reach out to her best friend whenever she was feeling conflicted, or overwhelmed. Narma had always been honest with her.

Course, that was going to be the case whether Narma was around or not.

Maybe it would be easier this way.

Man, oh man, did she hate this. She wanted to say _Hey! Let’s go get smoothies and you can complain about your parents while I work on making another of those little crop shirts to run in when the mornings get hot!_

But she didn’t do that. One, because it was four in the morning, and two because she was soaking wet in a junkyard, tricking her friend into showing her how to fight _people_ so she could hunt and take down the gangbangers stalking their neighborhood.

She inhaled sharply. It seemed more real when she just spelled it all out like that. Like, she was _actually_ doing this. They slinked off towards the exit, back in their civilian clothes. Thoughts of danger and isolation swirled in Rory’s mind as Narma prattled quietly about the myriad of forms the Institute had sent her following her acceptance.

She couldn’t tell her, tell _any_ of them. She couldn’t ask them to stand at _another_ frontline, one that they hadn’t been born into. Monsters? They appear, and you go home with a scratch or break or a bruise. An unspeakable terror filled her at the thought of sending any of them home with a _bullet_.

And that’s why these guys had to _go_.

They had almost made it, when the tell-tale clank of metal crashing on a solid surface rung out into the pre-dawn air.

Rory, already on edge, threw herself back flat to the nearest mound of repo’d garbage as her heart slammed against her ribs. Like a protective mom in a traffic accident, she’d thrown her arm out in front of Narma beside her. Her friend blinked owlishly into the dark.

It could have just been a raccoon, knocking over a trash can. But then she caught the up-and-down cadence of conversation. Peering around the side, she sucked in a breath and quickly retracted. She felt stupid. Of course; an abandoned spot the cops weren’t paying attention to, of course the new town thuds would have found it too!

“What is—” Narma began to say, but Rory shoved a finger in front of her mouth,

There they were. They were different guys from before, but the fact they were conducting business while the city was conked out was not a good sign. Straining, she could just barely make out their words.

“Where all did you make the offer?”

“I have folks on King and Main. What did you hear back?”

“I ask the questions. What did they say?”

“They can make the drop at the old warehouse on 6th. They’ll send someone tonight.”

Rory’s eyes widened. She knew that building. It wasn’t out of the way at all; there were civilian shops all over the place down there. And they would be there tonight?

_This was her chance._

She jumped. From beside her, Narma tugged her sleeve. Lower than a whisper, Narma said, _“We have to get out of here.”_

Frantically, Rory nodded.

Without further delay, they fled the yard, crawling through the cut gap in the fence and leaving the junk as if it had never been disturbed.

\--

Mallory stalked the streets, trying to decide what to do. She had seen the report, but what could she even tell them? _“Oh, yeah, that girl is possibly in the Seattle area?” “She was in the police station; you’re idiots”?_ Logic dictated that yes, she could absolutely tell them that much, but something held her back. Gwen was right. The police seemed much more accommodating with her. Who knew what they might have told her? What if they knew the origin of the power surges? She couldn’t sell her out now, where they might take Gwen somewhere out of reach, where she couldn’t interrogate her.

Afternoon light bounced off of shop windows along Main street, back in the vicinity of the last attack. She hadn’t consciously decided to go there—maybe it was because the police station was relatively nearby, or maybe she had though examining the last corona of battle damage might tell her something. Who knew? Sometimes, she was an enigma, even to herself.

The portion of the street where they actually fought had been quartered off, though, so that was a no-go. She stood taking offense to the police tape for several moments before turning to cut through a nearby alley onto the adjacent street. Obviously, that wasn’t going to get her anywhere.

She sulked, head ducked to her shoulders when the glare cleared from a certain building as she moved from one to the next. The room inside visible for a split second, her eyes passed over the scene within before passed. She stopped. Back up, to where angle of the sun left the room unobscured again. She narrowed her eyes, pulling her hands from her pockets. _No way._ All that research, and she just runs into her _again_?

She backed up, peering up at the business marque: _SALLE AURIOL._ She read the notice of the window. Why would she be _there_? Of all places? This was getting absurd. The balls on this girl continued to baffle her, but at least she didn’t have to keep roaming the streets like a vagrant. She gave a salute to the sky. _Destiny wins, yet again._

She marched into the building.

Inside, she could see more clearly what she had had to make out through a dirty window: manikins stood along the wall in bulky white uniforms with mesh masks. Cubbies stood beside a desk at the far wall, holding copies of the uniform. The wall was mirrored, reflecting the padded floor and the rack of weapons.

And who stood at the front of the room, but the very person she’d been looking for. Yes, destiny was a true bro.

Gwen turned her head to look when she entered. Her brows flew up, but she quickly recovered, directing her attention to the kids lined up along the pads. “Wow, I have to say, this is getting kind of stalker-y.” She hands flexed aimlessly on the objects they were occupied with, one of the mesh masks and a dull-tipped, rapier-looking weapon.

“You’re got some nerve,” Mallory groused. She flung an arm out at the group of kids, who stared back at the interpersonal spectacle with interest. “Creeping around an investigation and handing out false information like cheap cigars, then you just…what. Decided to hunker down for the feel-good family hour like nothing’s up? Teaching some kids how to fence, oh, why not, like some kind of Wholesome Hal at the PBS special?”

Gwen blinked heavily, before shaking her head. _“’Wholesome Hal at the PBS special,’ wow_. You really are incredibly neurotic, aren’t you. Look, if you’re so determined to follow me around, you might as well make yourself useful. Suit up.” She gestured to the wall of uniforms, and Mallory balked.

“What, now?”

The blond girl didn’t back down. “I’ve got a class to teach. If you really want to talk, we can talk after the hour’s up, but these kids are paying to be here. Now get dressed.”

Fuming, but not sure what else to do, Mallory pulled out one suit that looked big enough to be one of the adult sizes. The kids, intelligent enough to have figured out she had no idea what she was doing, jeered at her, calling out suggestions on how to put it on right when she was inevitably stumbling over herself. After a few hapless moments, she managed to get it on in a way that felt correct. She pulled the hood on, and grabbed an armament that looked similar to the one Gwen was holding. Fine. You really want to go, bitch, we can go.

Gwen tapped the mat in front of her and swung the sword out in front of her. “To the end of the mat.” She turned her attention to the kinds, pulling on her hood as well. “Okay guys. Do you remember the starting position Moniteur Pirot taught you?”

The kids shouted out, slight variations of “shoulder-width,” and “make an L!”

Ha, Mallory adjusted her stance. Little do you realize you are teaching me how to do this.

Gwen herself planted her legs apart, one straight forward and one perpendicular. She stood limply. “So, like this?”

 _No,_ the kids screamed in varying decibels. They added “arm back!” and “bend your knees!”

“That’s right,” Gwen nodded, adjusting. “So, does this look a little better?”

“Yeah!”

“Okay. So, I’m going to run through a basic en garde to refresh your memory, and you can let me know what you’re having questions on before we move on, okay? Then, I want to see it.”

Gwen turned her attention back to Mallory. “And of course, you would normally salute.” She swept the blade out across her body, before pulling on the hood. Go time.

Mallory braced, holding the weapon up in what she hoped was an intimidating manner as Gwen continued to speak.

“So. When you’re moving forwards, you want to push off with your back foot, and then step forward. You’re using that momentum from your back leg to move without compromising your position.” She moved forward. It was so clean and formal looking, Mallory couldn’t help but feel clumsy as she copied in the unfamiliar uniform. She gritted her teeth. “And you just keep going that way.”

Mallory slunk up the line—it was just back and forth, right? But when she changed the position of the blade, the class gave a disapproving _ooooh._ Through the mask, she could just barely see Gwen’s mouth twitch up a bit. “When I’m holding the foil straight out from the direction of my body, this is position 6th. Moniteur Pirot told me he showed you guys last class.” She brought her blade so her arm crossed her chest. “This is position 4th. Here, on the other side? That gives you an extra layer of protection between you and your opponent.”

Stepping one foot at a time, Mallory brought the foil up to strike as the other girl advanced towards her on the mat. Mallory had to move fast; she just had to hit her, right? She thrust out the foil as the girl got close.

Effortlessly, the other girl turned the blade to the side and thrust forward, hitting her right in the chest. “Touch.”

Mallory jumped at the contact. _Oh, come on._ She just caught her off guard, was all (that was a lie; she was never off her guard.) Plus, she’d never done this before!

Either way, Gwen looked pleased with herself. “If your opponent tries to land a hit, you can parry and repost to land a hit whilst they’re open. Reset.”

Gwen jaunted back to her side of the mats while the kids clapped. Mallory’s face burned. This was humiliating!

“I know that’s as far as you guys got, so we’ll finish the bout with those. First to three.” She swept the foil out. “En garde.”

Gwen came at her, and Mallory pushed off, trying to copy the forward step enough to at least somewhat advance. They met at least sort of in the middle, their foils poised to strike. Gwen’s class cheered, mostly cheering on their mentor, so not a friendly crowd. That was fine. This was between her and Gwen, anyways.

It occurred to Mallory that this was sort of ridiculous.

They hovered, crouching in their spots and waiting for the other to move. Taking a risk, Mallory quickly whipped the needle-like blade to the side, the tip striking Gwen in the arm.

Gwen just shook her head shortly, eyes squint. “Not the target area, sorry.” She lunged, snagging her right between the left ribs. “Touch.”

 _Dammit! “_ You could have mentioned that!”

Gwen shrugged. “Metal coat is the mark. Whoops.” She didn’t take her eyes off her, as if still expecting her to lash out again.

One more point.

Gwen moved back to her side, maintaining the same step. Determined, Mallory swept out her foil when she saw Gwen ready to do the same.

“En garde.”

Mallory moved as quick as she could with the little two-step. The uniform was hot, and sweat beaded on her neck in even the little time she had been wearing it. It was the stupid florescent lights. She thrust her foil outward—Gwen parried. She tried to get her with the same move from the beginning, but Mallory retreated enough to clumsily parry back.

Gwen’s brows flew up through a mask of mesh.

The sense of competency didn’t last long. At the retaliation, Gwen advanced at rapid speed, forcing a defensive Mallory back to her starting position, By the time the stance wasn’t practical anymore and she ran into wall, she felt a scream-inducingly gentle tap to the center of her chest.

“Touch.”

Smirking like a sonuvabitch, Gwen turned away and addressed the children. “So. Em garde, parry, repost. What questions are we having?”

The class proceeded thus, and Mallory slumped in the corner sulking, still in the maskless uniform. The kids paired off and practiced and, infuriatingly, Gwen didn’t pay her another mind. After another half-hour the kid’s parents began to show up, one-by-one carting them away.

And Gwen’s time had run out.

Once the studio cleared, Mallory tripped out of the uniform and pulled Gwen outside by the arm, not wanting to spend another second in that den of character-building and lies. She hissed, pushing up her glasses. “You’ve got _some_ balls,”

Gwen squinted. “Getting…a job?”

Well, yes, but not for the reasons she was probably thinking. Mallory hissed, “ _Waltzing into the police station when you’ve got a fucking Amber Alert out on you_.”

The other girl looked legitimately surprised for a second. Then, she looked away, grimacing. “Yeah, I hadn’t accounted for that. My sister’s birth father has been out of the picture for a long time; I didn’t expect they would blame it on him. Sent up some flags, I guess. Really, I think they just wanted the police to take it more seriously—”

Mallory tightened her grip on Gwen’s arm, inciting a small _ow._ “And what, you just _hoped_ nobody would notice?”

Gwen pulled back, tugging her arm out of Mallory’s grasp. She shrugged, rubbing the red, sore-looking spot. “Honestly, I was just hoping I was going to get really, really lucky.”

A burst of outrage filled Mallory’s chest, and then the ground began to shake.

\--

The Professor stood over her plans, reading over the energy readouts for the hundredth time. Her regional experiments accounted for other sources, but none of them were practical.

The Benefactor peered over her shoulder from the feed on the screen. “This isn’t going to last forever. We must resume collection. The longer we wait, the more the life force is going to decay over time. We have to keep feeding the amalgam if we want it to be sustainable.”

“It’s not worth it,” the Professor pushed her glasses up into her hairline. She’d had this headache for days, couldn’t it just please, _please_ go away? “We can’t expend what we already have to launch the next prototype. We don’t even know if it has enough stability to be out in the world yet.”

Something in the back of her mind suggested wryly that one she was physically experiencing wasn’t the only headache in the room.

“It does,” the Benefactor insisted. “I know it does. And it will be more effective. You just need to get enough of a surge to activate it. She paused. “What about the seismic engine?”

“Just to reach the ignition point?” She considered it. Another power surge alone wasn’t going to do it. “…we can test it.”

She abandoned her blueprints, moving over to the switchboard wired to her many experiments. She turned the dial to the turbine in question, using the map to locate a suitable place on the Faultline. “If it doesn’t work, we’re not trying again.”

“We damn well would, and you know it.”

The Professor’s hand paused on the _on_ switch. Her fingers shook, and she knew that _She_ knew she was restraining herself from going for the locket.

“…you’re doing what you have to do,” the Benefactor said gently, her voice scratchy with overexertion. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make this harder than it has to be. You’re doing great. You’re infinitely farther along than I was at that age.”

The Professor pursed her lips. “I’m running the test.”

She pressed the button.

\--

The ground began to rumble, and civilians along the street yelped in alarm, grabbing onto the nearest solid thing. Mallory braced her boots on the sidewalk—an earthquake? Not unusual in Seattle, but this one felt pretty strong. Traffic ground to a stop in alarm and people crouched on the ground, covering their heads.

Mallory scanned the area as the rumbling continued, Gwen seeming as startled as she was. “We need to get somewhere more stable—"

Suddenly, there was a cracking noise overhead. Mallory’s eyes flew up in alarm and she had only a couple seconds to take in the crack forming in Gwen’s side of the overhang. Her eyes darted to the girl—she didn’t see it. _“Shit—”_

Moving on instinct, she shoved Gwen down sideways out of the impact area as the building crumbled down at them, trying to block as much as she could. She heard the concrete hit the sidewalk with a heavy _thud_ as her knees throbbed from the impact. _This has got to be at least a 5…_ It had been a while.

They were still partially shadowed by the overhang, leaving opportunity for more of the building to throw more debris at them. Fully on the ground, dread set in as she felt smaller fragments of rock crash down on the back of her coat. _Crap, I’m right in the blast zone…_

But then, slowly, it stopped. The rumbles puttered off until the ground was still below them. Mallory could hear the sounds of car alarms going off in the distance, block formerly resounding with panicked yelled quieting to concerned murmuring as everyone tried to get their barings back. Mallory winced, eyes still pointed over her shoulder at the overhang. Yeah, no, she didn’t trust that. She shifted—ow, okay, her back was going to be bruised were the rockfall had gotten frisky. Knowing she needed to move, she moved her attention back to the space below her.

Gwen peered back at her, sprawled where she had pushed her out of the way. “Quick thinking there.”

There was an unreadable expression on her face, but Mallory flushed angrily as it hovered around the same amused un-concern Gwen seemed to live in. And, okay, yeah, maybe she’d gotten a little closer than she had meant to possibly _saving the other girls life,_ crouched down above her like some kind of human meatshield. Which is not! Something she had been worried about! It was just instinctive, was all. ‘Cause she was just that heroic of a person. Obviously.

She pushed away, pulling herself up. “You’re _welcome,”_ she hissed as she bruises along her spine ached. “Get up. There could be aftershocks.”

“My hero,” Gwen drolled, staying a step out of range of the overhang. She whistled at the damage. “Mr. Pirot told me the building was old, but it really must have been flimsy…good thing the kids were gone.” She turned her head, smirking. “I guess I was really lucky you just happened to be here.”

Mallory crossed her arms, scoffing. “There’s no such thing as luck.”

The amusement dropped off Gwen’s face. “Excuse me?”

“Luck. It’s not real.” She waved a hang at the marque above them, in its sorry state. “If something happens, it happened because it was destined to happened. Not because of some kind of dumb luck. I was always going to end up here.” She pointed a finger. “And it’s unbelievably foolish to expect luck to protect you from getting found out by the law. I don’t know why you’re here, but obviously you don’t want them to know its you or you wouldn’t have changed your name. You’re going about this the stupidest way possible. You’re going to get caught.”

Gwen frowned, eyes narrowed and judge-y. “That’s the most childish thing I’ve ever heard.”

Mallory jolted back. “ _I’m_ being childish?”

“You’re setting yourself up to wind up in a ditch,” she said harshly. “Look at the life of any person and you can see that luck is a force in the universe. If you don’t respect it, you’re going to be punished by it. Oh, and by the way, way to absolve yourself of any responsibility with that “destiny” business.” She gesticulated sharply, flipping out her hands with the words. “‘Oh, I’m not stalking this girl I don’t even know! It was my _destiny_!’ Grow _up_.”

That was an absurd oversimplification of the concept; if she even understood it at all, she wouldn’t sound like an idiot right now. “That is not even _close_ to—”

“Oh, and by the way,” Gwen _cut her off_ , flipping her _stupid_ blond braid back over her shoulder of her _stupid_ fencing uniform. She peered back at her, relaxing her expression back into that I’m-so-amused-by-everything expression she loved so freaking much, she said, “If you were coming here to find out what I know, you’re out of luck. I’m going to be too busy to help you, seeing as I’ll be heading off to counsel the junior athletics camp in like a week. Lots of preparation to do.”

 _“What?!”_ She was leaving the city? Just like that? After she’d put so much work in? This was _unacceptable!_

Before she could ask any follow-up questions, Gwen re-entered the studio and locked the door, heading for the back.

Malloy fumed. She stepped back, people weaving around her from the sidewalk as she yelled into the storefront. _“How did you even get a job!”_

\--

Rory packed up that evening with a sense of finality. This was something she wanted to do, something she was sure about, and still it felt so outside of her wheelhouse she couldn’t even imagine it going well.

But she had to try.

Celene perked up as she made to leave. “Where are you going?” She’d been frantic lately, pacing Rory’s room as more time went on and they weren’t able to identify their new opponents. She’d left enough fur around that Rory was sure Mama had figured out she had a cat, but so far she hadn’t brought it up.

At night, she would sleep next to the treasure box, as if she had a chance if someone decided to come take it. But it helped alleviate her anxiety, so Rory wasn’t going to say anything.

“Just going for a walk,” Rory whispered back, holding the window as she opened it to minimize the noise.

Celene sat up, her tail whipping metronomically. “Your mother said that was dangerous.”

Rory sighed, slumping into the window seal. Yeah, Mama had been on her about not staying out too late. Which was why she had to stay in, and then sneak out later on. You’d think she’d be used to this by now. “I’m taking the safe routes.”

Celene stared at her for a moment, before sinking back down beside the Box. “…okay?”

Thank goodness for Celene’s lack of modern day knowledge. Rory gave her a thumbs up. “I’ll see you later.”

She let herself breathe as she made it out to the street with no sign of noise from her house. She glanced over to Narma’s home across the street. All the windows were dark. Time to go.

As soon as she hit a non-residential building, she transformed and took to the roof. Sailor Boreas crossed the city, hoping she would be on time to witness whatever handoff was supposed to be coming.

\--

It took her about thirty minutes to get out to South King. They had been trying to revamp the place over the past couple months, and so there were only a couple properties left unfinished. Only one, near the crossroads those guys had mentioned.

Only when she was right on top of it did Sailor Boreas descend back to the street, lowering herself down with a clack of boots on asphalt. This had to be the place they were talking about. For now, all she could do was wait for them to show up.

If she hadn’t missed them already.

Crossing her arms and sinking down against the alley walk, Rory hugged her knees, straining to keep out of the grime. Very alone.

_A monster works on instinct. A monster can’t hunt down your family._

She waited.

Nearly two hours had passed when she heard the tell-tale creak of the warehouse’s back door. The moon spilled orange light overhead as Sailor Boreas rose from her crouch, body numb from maintaining her position. No turning back now.

She waited a minute or so until she was sure whoever was there had made it into the building. She didn’t want to chance running into them as she made her own way. Gulping, Rory approached the entrance. Stepping as lightly as she could, she crept into the building, holding the door firm as she went to minimize the noise. She could hear speaking. She sneaked forward, glancing around a stack of crates that had been abandoned near the back. Looking around, it seemed as if this had become a dumping ground for excess supplies, the area peppered with crates of different shades and specifications.

There was a bag on the floor. She couldn’t see what it was, but she couldn’t imagine it was anything good. Two guys stood at the far end of the room, near the entrance. The lights were still off, but the moonlight provided enough visibility that she could make out their silhouettes. Different guys from before, but their bodies held at similar aggressive angles. She listened intently, trying to make out the conversation.

“Man, how do I know you’re not ripping me off?”

One guy flipped a hand to the bag, “Take a look at them yourself. It’s a quality stash. I know you heard of Kilo-J, he’s the one that hooked us up. You can ask him.”

Stash? So they were making some kind of exchange, just like the guy had said. As she watched, she saw the glint of a gun in one of the guy’s waste bands. Okay, also not a good sign.

The first guy didn’t seem convinced. “I don’t know, man. The YTBs don’t like you moving in on their turf, you know that, right? Any deals in this area? That’s a challenge to them.”

A chill went up Rory’s spine. The YTBs? Okay, she’d heard enough.

She stepped out from her spot, pointing out to them. “Stay where you are!”

The two guys turned to her. Immediately, they moved for their weapons, but paused when they saw her. The guy who was apparently being sold to leaned back a little. “Dang, I thought that shit on the news was a joke. That’s a pretty neat trick. What the hell are you supposed to be?”

Rory sucked in air. She kind of forget she didn’t exactly look like a regular person in-uniform, at least not to civilians. They could only see that dark-holograph overlay, the bright gold and orange of her uniform. Lowly, she breathed. “It’s not a trick. I—I’m a soldier of truth and justice. You are bringing trouble to this city, and I command you to leave, or there will be consequences.” She planted her hands on her hips, and tilted her chin up, trying to look confident. She hadn’t felt so much like _Rory_ in-uniform in ages. “I suggest you surrender now. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“The other guy laughed. “Aw, she doesn’t want to _hurt_ us.” He spit. “Scram, you freak. We got business to take care of.”

They weren’t taking her seriously. She shifted side-to-side, gripping her boots to the dusty floor. _I gave them a chance._ “Alright then.” She nodded, and stretched her neck out one more time. “If that’s your choice—” How did this go? She remembered, and thrust out her arm. “—then in the name of this city, I will punish you!”

The guys grinned at each other, seeming to finally realize this was going to be a fight. The runner shook his head. “You showed up to the wrong party.”

She tensed—He pulled out the gun.

The other guy grabbed his hand, wrenching the gun away where it clattered to the floor. “No, you idiot! You forget where we are? What if the cops hear?”

With the spastic energy of an arachnophobe crushing a spider, Sailor Boreas shouted, “Dire Stellar Gust!” The burst threw them off kilter into the wall with a meaty thud.

Rory covered her mouth, biting back a gasp. Oh, crap, this was a lot more real than she had anticipated. It occurred to her then, how did she plan to incapacitate these guys? And what then? Man, she really hadn’t thought this through.

The assault didn’t distract them for long. Flipping out a pocket knife, they came towards her. Little ole’ her going hand-to-hand with some tactical, fully mobile human beings wasn’t a situation she wanted to be in. She needed to take them on separate.

One of the guys charged towards her, obviously faster than his friend and she staggered out of the way. Good thing she was agile, these guys were pissed now. She could see, actually, where the shrapnel of the Gust left gouges in his skin. He had a tattoo of a tiger that looked completely mauled. Her heart pounded, not used to seeing gore she had inflicted. _Get it together!_

Sailor Boreas eyed the crates behind him as she noticed the guy coming up on the other side. It struck her, she didn’t just have her powers! The thought was like a light in the grungy darkness of the warehouse.

Leaping up, she hoped the crates would be heavy enough to support her as she swung around to the other side of the stack. With the momentum, hanging from one crack she brought her feet swinging towards the one beside it. The force was enough to send the relatively heavy-feeling crate flying out to smash into the guy’s side, where he went down with a shout.

Holy crap, she might actually be doing something here!

She yelped as the other guy thrust forward with the knife into the gap she had landed in.

Jumping back, she only had a second as the guy rounded the crates. She had to space to summon a gust as the guy swiped the blade out at her—she yelped as the knife caught the space between her glove and her shoulder braces.

The guy laughed, the strings of his rag whipping behind him like “That magic shit ain’t that great then, is it?”

She had to make some space. Eyes scanning the room, she noticed a support pillar not too far off. Turning to sprint, she could feel the pounding of his tennis shoes behind her as she made a break for it.

“Oh _now_ you want to run. Sorry, you fucked up, girlie.”

Oh Jesus! Heart pulse slammed at vision blackening speed as she crouched, praying to herself as she pushed off the floor, aiming a vertical climb at the pillar.

One, two, three, her boots kept the traction and on the third hit, she swung her arms up to grab the diagonal strut. With all her strength, she pulled herself up to hook one arm over, leaving her other arm free.

Glancing down, her pursuer looked annoyed, and a little baffled. Wow, she was not used to having to hold herself up for extended periods of time; her inner arm was screaming. Thrusting out her arm, she yelled once more, “Dire Stellar Gust!” Please let this work.

She’d gotten fairly good manipulating the gust, though never under such high pressure. With all her will, she urged the breeze to wrap around the blade—the guy yelled as the sharp particles sliced at his fingers, but ultimately grabbed the knife.

She flung it away.

The guy looked shocked for a moment, but in his search for his weapon his eyes landed on the fumbled gun he had originally went for. He shot down to grab it.

Nope, no way. She let go of the pillar.

Before the guy could straighten back up, Sailor Boreas crashed down on top of him, boots first.

The warehouse was quiet, except for the sound of her own heavy breathing. She kneaded the muscle below her armpit, and she turned her arm over. Yeesh, that was a nasty cut. She surveyed the seen. No time to worry about it now.

She noticed a sort of highlighter yellow rope connecting some of the crates together, and she located the discarded knife on the floor. Cutting the cord, she gathered up the length of it and brought it over to the pillar she had climbed. It was a series of actions and she was almost in a daze. She moved the crate off of Tiger Tattoo, dragged him over. Lined him and White Do-rag up on opposite sides of the pillar, so they couldn’t reach each other. Secured them the best she could, fiddling nervously with the knots and hoping they would stick.

She collected a couple remaining weapons they had stowed in their pockets and moved over to the zippered bag. She unzipped it and found two things: some little bundles of white she didn’t want to know, and guns. Like, a dozen. Frankly, quite a few guns.

Breathing, she zipped up the bag, keeping it away from her gash. She thought about it—where to go next? What should she do?

Eventually, she found a payphone nearby. She had to do this fast; she couldn’t risk leaving anything behind. She dialed 911, fishing out a couple coins she had found on the perps.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

Rory’s mind whirled, what should she say? In a split-second decision, she lowered her voice, enunciating as far outside of her normal speech patterns as she could manage. “I’m at 6th and South Lander,” she said. “I’m leaving it here. You can pick them up at the warehouse on 6th.”

The operator paused. “I’m sorry?”

“You should hurry.”

Sailor Boreas disconnected. She dropped the bag to the base of the phone booth, drugs and pistols crunching inside. The part of her that wouldn’t _stop_ being Rory placed a hand over her mouth, a sort of hysteria hovering in the back of her mind like a fly, buzzing in an empty room. What had she gotten herself into?

The clicking of her boots on the street was deafening as she made her way home.


	5. Chapter 5

**Episode 5: I’m On a Boat; Or, Procedures Going Exactly as Planned!**

The professor studied the readouts from the seismic generator. These were comparable to the energy spikes she had originally been able to siphon for Prototype 1, and the residual activity spurned on by the turbine had led to a trickle of extra power even after the quake had ended. Something big like she had done was not sustainable, of course. If she continued to trigger seismic activity from the same place, someone would eventually notice they had a similar origin point.

She glanced back to the radar map on her terminal. Perhaps, though, if she could spread it out…

This was all for a catalyst, regardless. She still didn’t know if the second prototype was stable enough to maintain a physical form, even if she were to ignite it. Perhaps she could supplement the energy loop with additional seismic reverberation?

“It’s unhelpful for you to think to yourself, you know.”

The Professor closed her eyes, kneading at the bridge of her nose. “Do you have to maintain the connection? I had almost forgotten you were here.”

She hated looking at her. Every time she gazed into that screen all she could see was a testament to her own failings. As though She wasn’t ready to pick apart every flaw in her thought process anyways. She knew she was a workaholic. She knew she knew exactly how to get into her own head. She didn’t need it verbalized.

The Benefactor crossed her arms. “And trust you to keep on target instead of weeping to yourself in the broom closet? Spare me. Besides, I was right, wasn’t I? It looks sustainable.”

“It’s promising,” the Professor bit out. She glanced to the table top, where her other map was spread out, heavily noted. “We still have no idea where the Box might be located, though.”

**Aurora Bridge, took 30 minutes to respond. light blue and gold.**

**Mercy West Hospital, responded in minutes. Police reports from patients say 2. gold and navy. Improved energy signal tracking**

**Broadway and E St Johns responded immediately. Improved energy signal tracking again. City block, not super helpful.**

The prototypes were built to track repeated energy signals similar to the ones the Benefactor had provided. But this wasn’t enough information.

The Benefactor spoke slowly. “The more points of location, the easier it will be to locate them. Get. To it.”

The Professor stood straight, pulling her coat in around her. Approaching the terminal, she took immense satisfaction at hovering over the off button. “Time to recruit some help, I guess.”

“Don’t.”

She turned the screen off.

Her heels clicked sharply as she made her way down the hallway, bouncing off the clean white walls. In the background, she could hear the constant _ticktickticktick_ of others working in the work room, and the door shooshed open as she pushed her way through.

The assistants looked up as she entered. One of them, a man with glasses she only knew as Newman by his work badge, addressed her as she entered. “Professor.”

She gave him a nod. “Good morning everyone.” The assistants turned from their microscopes and test tube racks to look at her, and she pushed up her glasses in consideration. Who could she trust here?

Newman had worked with the lab for years. “Newman,” she nodded at him. “Kesler. Vargas. If you’re not too busy, I would like a word with you three.”

The Assistants glanced to each other before leaving their stations.

She led them to a room down the hall, which was a showing room. The little tiered stage would make an appropriate venue for her address, if she was going to make this sound appealing. She lifted her head, peering down at the three lined up side-by-side before her.

“Thank you for stepping out. This is a sensitive project, and I wanted it to stay between parties I knew could handle this responsibility.”

Already, the bright-eyed youths were glancing to one another with intrigue, Newman’s heavy brows risen behind his glasses. He looked back to her. “What _kind_ of project?”

\--

Carmen sipped the last of her coffee, watching with the haze of morning calm as her father gathered up his briefcase, pulling on his suit jacket for work. There was a sense of normalcy in this—she had always felt more comfortable when there was a sense of routine, and they tried to eat their meals together as often as possible. In that way, the empty plate on the other side of table was a comfort. They usually made do with toast or similar to compensate their busy mornings, but today was the first day of summer proper and she’d had the time to get up early and make them some frittatas. It made her feel good to put in the extra effort.

This was nice, her father’s Bill Newman records playing. Normal. It was a moment where she didn’t have to think about how she hadn’t spoken to him yet, about anything. She could just ignore it.

She had been thinking a lot about the conversation she’d had with the girl in the park, Sylvia. She was right; Carmen couldn’t just keep putting this off forever, especially if she had finally had a spark of inspiration about what she wanted to do in life. Now, she had something to argue for. Not knowing, she realized now, and been her excuse for not speaking up for years.

But she had no idea how to start.

So, for now, procrastinating a little bit longer wouldn’t hurt anything, right?

She sliced off one more little bite of her breakfast as her father straightened his lapel. “Have a good day at work.”

He _humphed_ lightly. “I actually wanted to speak with you before I go, about something coming up.”

Carmen lowered the fork from her mouth. Oh. That…wasn’t promising. “Oh?”

“Yes,”He said, turning to her. He looked like some kind of monolith standing over the kitchen table, obscuring the light from the chandelier behind. Like an Easter Island Head. And then her said the dreaded words: “There’s going to be a party coming up, in a couple months. Around the last week of July.”

Carmen tried to fight down her blanch, but it was strictly bad news. Handsy patrons, stuffy, stilted conversation and no escape route. She hoped a few specific names hadn’t made it to the guest list. “Oh, I see. You’ll want me there, then?”

He sniffed. “Actually, this event is one I had planned for you to have a more active role in, dearest. You know the time is drawing near that you will step into the business. I would like to see how you would do in _planning_ such an occasion. I have specific clients I need in attendance, of course, but I’m curious to see what you would do on your own.”

Carmen’s fingers were clamped vice-like around the fork. Oh, no. If he was asking her to get experience in this sort of networking already, he must have planned to get her involved sooner than she had realized. She had practiced in the mirror, the sort of things she wanted to tell him, but now she found herself in a bind—she had to either take the task or explain right now why she couldn’t. And she knew there was only one way that would go.

Her mind paused, another possibility occurring to her. Well…if she was doing the planning…maybe she could interfere in her father’s match making attempts in another way. It came out in a rush, breathlessly: “Could I invite some friends?”

The question caused her father to still. It was embarrassing to understand why the question caught him off guard, but he wasn’t immediately saying no. He cocked his head to the side, straightening his tie. “Which friends? Are these those _girls_ I met before?” _Girls_ , he spoke with a level of distaste.

She scrambled to secure her angle. “I can make sure they understand the seriousness,” she said. “So they know how important this is. They’re very nice girls, very social. I’m sure they’d love to come. And,” she threw in, “it would help me…integrate into the role, if there were individuals there I were already close to.”

Her father squinted his eyes, bothering his cufflinks. She clenched her fists, waiting for some indication of what he was thinking. Come on.

Her heart leapt as slowly, he nodded. “…I suppose that would be alright. Just make sure they are up on their etiquette for this sort of event. Otherwise, as long as you are able to devote your attention mainly to the business, I don’t believe it would hurt anything.”

Yes! “That’s wonderful! Yes, I promise I will put my all into making this event successful. You can count on me!” And maybe I might finally have some fun at one of these things. Hopefully, having a sort of buffer would prevent the guests from doing anything untoward. Surely, they weren’t stupid enough to pull anything when they knew someone was watching.

Her father seemed to relax, his former reluctance softening. “Good. You’ll need to arrange the catering and decoration; I want us to really go all-in on this one. The hosting will be up to you, though the networking will still be facilitated with my influence. Please let me know as you have these things arranged. Make me proud, Carmen.” With that, her father smoothed back his comb-over and headed out.

Carmen slumped back in the kitchen chair, closing her eyes. Okay, so she hadn’t said what she needed to, but she _had_ made a negotiation that might make things better for her. Maybe she had picked something up from the business side of things after all.

She threw her hand over her eyes. Thank goodness it was summer. She _really_ needed a break.

Now, to convince the others.

\--

Rory walked out of her last test, thrilled with the knowledge that for her, summer had officially began. The air was clear, the sun warming her back as she pulled off her bomber jacket to reveal something a little less than approved by school dress code. It was just one of those little knitted tops she had made, but midriff and bare-back both made the school system antsy, so. _Ha ha! Take that, school. Now I can wear whatever I want!_

She flashed her student ID as she checked out, letting them know she wouldn’t be coming back. Narma and Carmen were both already done at this point; what did Mallory even do, anyways? Wasn’t she homeschooled or something by her caretaker? She’d have to find out, because it was chill time now!

She sighed, her enthusiasm waning. _Man, if it were really that simple._ Just fun and sun with her friends until the fall session came around. The reality of the previous few days lingered in her mind, though. Running around like some kind of frilly Batman, the very real threat of guns a possibility at any moment.

She’d been patrolling, since the night with the guys in the warehouse. It was funny, she’d ended up adapting the route plan Mallory had wanted to go with after all, and none of them even knew it. She knew she was just asking for trouble, but was she imagining it or had things been quieter since she had taken down those gangbangers? Sure, the police had still been patrolling the neighborhood like it was ‘bout to be the site of the city’s next Krispy Kreme, but she hadn’t heard the kids at school talking about any more gunshots. No violent incidents reported in the area, either.

Celene hadn’t stopped being uneasy about her nightly strolls, though. She knew something was up. Rory was just going to have to get more creative about sneaking out. It was too late to turn back now.

“Well, hey there!”

Rory peered back to the school’s entrance, where Eddie was tromping out with a toothy grin on his face. “Hey, Eddie. You done now?”

He stretched over his head, and she winced at the sag of his bookbag. That thing must have been packed. “YES, it is OVER! Woof, I thought chemistry was going to kill me, but now I can turn my back on school with no regrets!” He turned, cupping his hands around his mouth, yelling back towards the school as he descended the steps backwards. “See ya!”

Rory laughed, making her own little megaphone. “Yeah, BYE!” She hadn’t seen much of Eddie since the pithos situation; she’d kind of missed his exuberance.

Eddie turned right-way-round, walking leisurely with her as she made her way through the parking lot. “So, are you doing anything to celebrate? Lots of guys are partying all over the city. It should be a show.”

Rory wrinkled her nose, sticking her hands in her pockets. “Eh, nothing in particular. I’m probably going to hit up my girls to go do something, but no specifics right now.”

Eddie waggled his eye brows, reaching back to pull a rolled-up paper from his backpack. “Then, might I make a suggestion?”

Hm, what kind of partying did _Eddie_ get up to? He seemed kind of…nerdy. It was cute as a personality trait, but not really something she would have associated with partying. Heck, what did she know? Maybe he was an absolute animal in his off-hours, you know, outside of the time he was actually sort-of a bear. She shrugged. “Sure.”

Stopping, he opened the paper, indicating a little box circled by red-pen. “The Seattle Times is throwing a boat party tonight! Start-of-Summer celebration, you know? They’ve rented out a trio of yachts down by the pier, and the party carries to the pier itself if you’re not feeling the water! Snacks, drinks, swimming and music! Should be super chill.” He looked quite pleased with himself, flicking the paper into a smoother position. “Aaaand I can get you a discount, if you’re interested.”

Wait, what? Rory cocked her hip, “A discount? Boy, where are you getting all of these connections?”

His eyes glittered as he pushed his glasses back into place. “Oh, yeah! The Seattle Times—” He pointed to one side, “saw my articles in the Garfield Times,” then to the other side, “I guess they were looking into the attack or something? And they asked me if I wanted to do a little freelance work! I got all the forms filled out, and now I’m doing some little assignments.”

Nice! She knew how much Eddie loved his journalism. A little unnerving that the paper had been doing more snooping around the school, but that whole business was over now anyways. “That’s great, Eddie! I’m sure you’ll do great!”

He flushed with pride. “Mm, I’m mostly doing fluff pieces right now, but I’m just glad to have the opportunity. Hey, maybe they’ll take me on full-time after school! Anyways, though, that’s why the discount. I’m covering the festivities.”

A boat party actually sounded pretty fun, actually. Rory’s never been on a big boat before, except for her uncle’s fishing boat, which was just a little thing. “Sounds sweet. Yeah, I’ll ask the girls what they want to do!”

Eddie folded the paper back in half, so the back page was showing. “Cool. If you guys end up coming, just shoot me a text, and I’ll hook you up. If you give me your phone, I can put in my number.”

She passed it over, and Eddie seemed to look at it in confusion for a second, before murmuring, “No, wait, I got it.” A moment later, he handed it back. “All set!”

“Cool, thanks, man.” Rory’s eyes fell to the paper, and something made her stop. “Hey…what does that say?” She indicated the article partially obscured by Eddie’s thumb. There was a small picture there, one she recognized as a familiar warehouse. Apprehension lit up in her brain like a firework.

Eddie’s brow was furrowed, but he jumped when he saw what she had indicated. “Oh, yeah! It’s crazy!” He flipped the paper up so the bottom was at the front. “There’s some kind of copy-cat vigilante running around!”

She examined the headline, her stomach clenching. **COPY-CAT CRUSADER? ANONYMOUS TIP LEADS TO ARREST OF LOCAL GANG AFFILIATES.** She didn’t think that the work she’d done the other day would be notable enough to make it to the paper, even if the article seemed small. Also, she wasn’t comfortable with the fact they’d immediately connected the gangbangers to her other work.

Her _“other work.”_ Geez, what even was her life?

“Yeah,” said Eddie, leaning in. “Apparently, somebody got some kind of bright idea watching the Soldiers to try and take on the local gangs. Man, that’s such a bad idea!”

Rory paused, looking at Eddie more directly. “What do you mean?”

Eddie looked up at her, the excitement in his eyes seeming to falter a little at the apprehension. “Uh. I mean. Gangs, right? They have guns. And there’s a _lot_ of them. If some rando off the street is trying to come at that…I mean, I feel like they maybe don’t understand the power the Soldiers are packing to be able to do what they do, and besides, that’s just a totally different type of combat. They seem to have actual powers, or at least some kind of technology that replicate powers. All I’m saying is that this new guy might not really understand what they’re getting into. This stuff’s dangerous.”

Rory bit her lip. Man, sometimes people do talk right into you even if they don’t know it, don’t they? “Yeah, I see what you mean.” She paused. “Soldiers?”

Eddie chuckled nervously. “You know, just…a name I made up.”

Well, at least the man wasn’t going to see her out at the first opportunity.

\--

Something was off.

Narma couldn’t help the prickling sensation that lingered in the back of her mind. She wasn’t able to pin-point exactly what it was, but something about the training in the junkyard left her with a bad taste in her mouth. Rory’s logic was sound. When they were dealing with an enemy whose major advantage was being about to get dozens of civilians in the way, it made sense to try and figure out how not to hurt them in the process. Still.

For some reason, something nettled at her about it. It wouldn’t let it go.

But Rory had no reason to lie to her, right?

It was probably nothing.

It was mid-day, and she knew she’d be hearing from her today—it was the first day of summer, they had to do something. When the message finally dropped in to her chat client, it was more heartening than she could have imagined.

Rory West [RW] opened group chat at 12:43 PM

[RW]: How do you gals feel about a boat party?

Where had Rory gotten a dang boat?

Narma Anand [NA] joined the group chat.

[NA]: Boat party? heck yeah.

[NA]: But on what boat? Where is this mysterious boat?

Mallory Dunbar [MD] joined the group chat.

[MD]: Thank god I am dying in this house

[MD]: You cannot imagine how many camps are starting at the end of the week

[RW]: Lol okay?

Carmen Rodriguez [CR] joined the group chat.

[CR]: That sounds wonderful actually,Yes please.

[NA]: So, not your boat?

[CR]: no!!!!

[RW]: Actually, Eddie got us discount spots if we can make it.

[NA]: who the heck is Eddie???

[RW]: You haven’t met Eddie??? Eddie is cool. You know, newspaper guy? I’m sure I mentioned him.

[RW]: Anyway he works for the newspaper and they are throwing a boat party and you all should come.

[MD]: I’m in

[MD]: Not the context in which I thought I would be saying that

[MD]: but in nevertheless.

[CR]: Um???

[MD]: Nonononono

[MD]: Like a cool hacker

[MD]: Not

[MD]: jegus chirst

[RW]: CARMEN OMG!

[CR]: I refuse to take the blame there.

[CR]: I never know with you

[MD]: Please excuse my chronic foot-in-mouth Inuendo-itis

[MD]: It is fatal this is how I die

[CR]: But no, I want to come to the boat party.

[NA]: Same.

Narma checked out the link as Rory shot it over to them. It looked pretty fun, and she could probably get over there no problem. Even this small arrangement felt her with a warmth, though. It felt like their lives had been going 100 miles an hour since this whole chaos started, and the chance for them to just hang out was like a mirage in the desert. Well, as least I know I boat is not going to up and vanish.

She took a breath. It was not that serious. And that’s why she was happy about it!

[NA]: Well I will see you suckers in the water then

[MD]: Pft I’ll stick to the deck thanks.

[CR]: You don’t like swimming?

[MD]: Sports as a leisure activity is a negative from me, chief.

[CR]: Swimming is fun! It doesn’t have to be a sport.

[RW]: It should be a chill party, Eddie’s cool.

[CR]: Oh! Speaking of parties, I wanted to ask you guys something.

[NA]: I’m listening.

[CR]: My dad is throwing this formal event at the end of July,and he wants me to host. I was wondering if any of you guys wanted to come? It’s mostly going to be dancing and chatting. To be honest, I hate it. But it would be more fun if you guys could come.

[NA]: Aw she likes us

[MD]: Fancy rich-people party? Count me in. I’m going to spike the punch.

[CR]: No

[RW]: She’s just kidding! We’d love to come.

[RW]: You’re just kidding, Mallory.

[MD]: I make no promises.

[NA]: For real though, yeah, any chance to dress up is a good one.

[MD]: Speaking of which, if this is going to be high-profile, what is the dress code? Do I need to pull a ballgown out or what

Narma froze, eyes flying back to the forms she’d been flipping through describing the details of her internship. The program could be used towards course credit at any number of design schools, but there were assignments that had to be completed. She grabbed for the last in the stack, eyes skimming the text again as her hand flew back to the keyboard.

[NA]: Girl, do you even know who you’re in a chat with?

[NA]: Carmen, you are a *saint*

[CR]: Thank you?

[NA]: This is actually perfect my internship has this final project thing due at the end that I need new designs for

[NA]: Don’t even stress I am on it, right now

[NA]: Send me your measurements STAT

[MD]: Aye-aye captain

[CR]: This metaphor seems a bit confused.

[RW]: Lol girl I’m not even sure they know what they’re talking about half the time.

They finalized their arrangements, Narma with a new sense of anticipation hovering in her chest. Maybe they would be able to work out this touch-and-go summer after all, amidst all the business.

Even so, she had one more call to make.

Finding the contact in her phone, she tried not to sound too eager as the line picked up. “Well hey there. How goes the paper-working? If it gets too boring, you can always come by.”

Manuel knew she’d gotten a lot of stuff to follow up on and had been keeping her company via text from working. Maybe Eddie would be willing to cover one more guest?”

“Oh, you know, it’s a drag. I was actually going to go out with the girls for a while. Hey, I was wondering...how do you feel about boats?”

\--

“This was a great idea.”

Carmen had, true to form, spent the first hour on the boat trying to coax the rest of them out to the water before repeatedly diving off the side and swimming circles around them. Rory had tried the water skis and immediately loved them, and Narma had alternately spent time chatting with her and Mallory and watching the intricate network of boats move to and fro out from the harbor. With the intent way she had an eagle-eye on the passenger trips, Mallory got the feeling she had probably invited someone else.

The water was crystal blue and almost too perfect. The sun trickled over the water like a drizzle of glass. Presently, Carmen was taking a break from becoming one with the ocean and was lounging in one of the chairs beside hers, looking as impeccably gorgeous as always. She sighed, the brim of her hat shadowing her closed eyes. "I was really stressed. This is great."

Mallory leaned over the side of the deck, bored with merely lounging. Water flicked up along the boatside, making the air slightly cool. "Yeah. I almost feel like an actual teenager." She smiled wryly, glancing back to Carmen who chuckled, soaking in the sun.

Her mind had been all over the place. She'd been stewing in the drama with Gwen, and it felt good to not worry about it for a little while. If she were being honest, it pissed her off a little bit that the girl was just out here chilling, running away from home like it was a leisure trip. When she had one. When she had something to go back to.

Damn. She thought she was done being mad about this.

She huffed. Okay, she wasn't being fair. She didn’t know the context, what kind of home they were running away from. Or _why_? Why couldn't Gwen just tell her _why_ so she could stop obsessing about her?

Mallory took a breath. No, stop that. Only aquatic teen frolicking now.

In her periphery, she could see Rory and Narma bounding up to the side of the boat. Bouncing on her toes, Rory chanted, " _Drink boat...is coming! Drink boat...is coming!_ " where several passers-by joined in with her.

The little speedboat slowed down as it neared the side of the yacht, and Rory and a mob of others handed ones over the side. Narma came back over with something more complicated, which she sipped at with the panache of someone playing the system. “This discount is the shit.”

Rory grinned. “Yeah, Eddie’s great.”

Mallory frowned, straightening a little as she caught sight of Rory’s upper arm in the sun. “Ouch, that looks like it hurt.”

The girl blinked, turning to look back. “Huh?”

The gash was a messy red line slashed through her dark skin, curving to the underside of her arm. That would have been…what, back at the hospital? “I would have thought that would have healed by now.” Her ribs didn’t seem to be bothering her anymore.

Rory blinked at the wound like she didn’t recognize it for a second. “Oh, no, I just caught it on a nail in the doorframe this morning. No biggie.”

Carmen winced. “Yikes.”

“Looks like tetanus to me,” Mallory accessed shortly.

Rory wrinkled her nose. “Can we even get tetanus?”

“Oh, oh,” Narma suddenly froze, gazing out to an upcoming passenger boat. “I’ve got to go.” She patted Rory firmly on the shoulder. “Don’t die. See ya.”

Mallory wondered, for just a moment, why Rory looked so uneasy.

\--

The passengers loaded and unloaded onto the yacht, swarming like a school of fish swimming upstream. Narma scanned the deck, trying to locate the familiar mop of curly hair she had spied from the rail.

There—he seemed to have gone around, and was lounging near the back of the deck. The breeze tussled his curls, where they swept forward attractively to frame his face. Her chest gave a nervous little pang as he turned his head and smiled, eyes finding her in the ruckus. He straightened as she joined him at the bow. She tipped her head up casually, leaning back against the wood. “Hey there. Glad you could make it.”

Manuel grinned. Shadow rimmed his lower lid, his weariness peeking through the façade of his button up, his pressed dress slacks. She could appreciate a well-dressed man. “Wouldn’t miss an opportunity to escape the café.” He peered down to her patterned one-piece and the sarong at her waist. “Nice swim suit.”

She couldn’t help but preen a little. “Thanks,” she rolled back her shoulders. “Made it myself.”

He leaned back. “Impressive.” He glanced to the deck behind them, where she could still hear Mallory and Rory making a ruckus (and Carmen, making gentle interjections.) “Your friends going to mind if I steal you away for a little bit?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Meh, They’ll probably be glad for one less monkey in the circus.”

Well, no. They might mind a little bit. But it wasn’t like she was ditching them; they were like ten feet away!

Manuel looked around appraisingly. “This is a nice set up. Wonder how they came up with this one?”

Narma peered past him to the myriad of boats filtering in and out from the docks. “Yeah, I’d be scared to know how much fuel they’re burning through.” This little shindig must have cost a pretty penny.

Even so, the ocean was beautiful. Her gaze moved out to the ocean, where it stretched out for miles and miles beyond. It was almost like the world dropped off. Even in the midst of party, the sight brought her a sense of uncommon peace. Usually, especially with everything that was going on, even calm evenings carried the undercurrent of unease, like a beat rising up from the city pavement. Here, though…she could imagine being here when it was quiet and believing that none of the rest of it existed.

She spoke softly, trying not to disrupt the feeling. She hoped her could hear her. “I should come out here more. It’s pretty as hell.” She never would have had the opportunity before she moved here. Even though it had only been three years, it felt like a whole different age. She peered up to Manuel, who was watching her with what seemed like intrigue. “I used to live in Missola, Montana, and it was the same thing? Big river cutting through the city. Never visited it. Course, that has nothing on this.” Turning, she joined him, leaning back on the rail. “Have you spent a lot of time on the water out here?”

His brow rose, and he nodded consideringly. “Yeah, actually. I grew up here, and my uncle loves to go deep-sea fishing.” There was a shine in his idea, like he was focusing on something very carefully. “We used to have this trip every summer, where we’d go out. He doesn’t get around as well anymore, though.” His gaze lit up. “At night? Beautiful. Every possible star. Like a million grains of sugar on a black counter. Seriously.”

She almost laughed. Of course, he would use that as a metaphor. She really needed to get him out of work more often! Still, she felt herself smiling. “I would love to see that.”

Manuel grinned. “Mm, perhaps that could be arranged.”

She flared a wrist like a debutant. “Oh, splendid, yes.”

He laughed, and they grew quiet, enjoying the ocean’s peace.

The silence was broken by a sudden excited chattering off one side of the boat. “What _is_ that?”

Reluctantly, Narma turned away from Manuel and the railing, taking a few steps to view the other side of the yacht. “One sec.” _Wonder what the commotion’s about._

Some of the community college girls were leaning over the side. It was immediately obvious what had caught their attention: jutting out of the water was a white, spikey object. It was stark and clean-looking, and it almost reminded Narma of one of those squishy puffer ball toys. It was quite large, about the size of the loveseat in her living room at home. She couldn’t imagine they hadn’t seen it on the approach.

“Some kind of trash,” one girl said distastefully.

A guy laughed. “That thing could have Titanic’d us.” He spread his arms out, leaning out over the water. _“I’m king of the world!”_

Another student hummed, as Narma made her way through the crowd. “Sea urchins don’t get that big, right?” The object bobbed mildly, then more aggressively. Hm, the tide’s picking up. we may have to turn in soon.

“Nah, man, that thing’s solid.”

Narma shuffled through to the side rail. She squinted, the object’s bright exterior only intensified by the sun on the waves. _Hm._ If this was trash, she couldn’t fathom what it might have been previously. The shear alienness of its presence was almost mesmerizing; as she watched it, she focused in on the humming of the boat’s slowed rudders. But…wait. That wasn’t coming from the rudders. It was coming from—

_Bzzz._

Narma leapt back as the object rushed violently forward, crashing into the yacht with a crunch. The party-goers screamed as the boat lurched, damp shoes slipping and sending them crashing to the hard deck wood. Narma grabbed the door handle into the interior cabin, pulling herself back at the boat went sideways. What is that?

The thing unfurled. While it retained its ball-like shape, long, angular arms and thin, wide legs flapped in the water like fins. Its spikes left a large dent in the boat’s paneling, and they all yelped as they each gradually felt the glug of water slipping in through a puncture hole. It wasn’t large, but that wasn’t much of an improvement.

Narma scowled; she recognized those jutting arms. This creature could have been Spindly Leg’s round cousin. Had to come from the same place. _Knew this was too good to be true._

In a panic, folks leapt overboard, trying to swim for the pier. That went about as well as one could expect. As she tried to figure out a way to move without hurdling into the water, the arms jutted out in different directions, grabbing people with extreme conviction. She recognized the way they went limp as an aura descended over them—her eyes widened. Over the water, that was bad news. She had to do something.

She felt down to the little hidden pocket in her skirt where the scepter was hidden away. The creature picked up another victim, the aura over the other fading as it dropped the first girl into the water. She began to sink like a stone.

No time. A plan was formulating, but she had to work quickly. A prayer running through her head, she yelled at the top of her lungs, over the screaming and panicked wet sounds: “Beta! Play catch!”

Without another moment to spare, she dove into the water.

\--

When the screaming started, it was almost comical the way their gazes shot to one another, as though it’d been choreographed. But none of them were laughing, the moment had come for the peace to break.

Carmen rolled off the sunbathing chair, watching the other boat-goers scrambling about.

“Where is it?” Mallory barked sharply, body turning one way then another to find the source.

The boat tilted—the rush of water. “The other side,” Carmen called over the noise, where she could see the inorganic shapes of something bright white spearing up from the water.

Rory’s eyes focused on them, “We have to move.” She glanced around, eyes finding the captain’s quarters and pushing towards it through the crowd of fleeing high school kids.

“No, wait,” Carmen shot out, and Rory halted, turning back. “We should split up. If they see us all go in one place and then come out—”

Rory huffed. “Good point.”

Mallory moved for her pocket, then cursed. “I left my bag in the upper deck room.”

She looked startled when Carmen grabbed her wrist. “We’ll go. You can take that room.”

Rory nodded. “I’ll try to find Narma. Find us as soon as you can.”

“Got it.” Carmen tugged Mallory behind her as she headed for the tiny set of steps leading to the upper deck. Her blood hummed with adrenaline—this, she could do. She had always been task-oriented, feeling more comfortable doing a job, where she could get lost in the repetitive motion, than socializing, where she so often got tangled in her thoughts. And this was the most effective task of all, becoming immersed in being this other person in the heat of a crisis.

She drove through the masses sweeping past them, fighting back against the number of people pushing to get past her. As they finally made it to the top of the steps, a man appeared at the rail, his crisp jacket rumpled by the chaos.

“Head downward, head downward,” he commanded gruffly, waving them back. “We need to get to the boats.”

Crap. If they couldn’t get up there, they couldn’t transform. As it happened, she’d set her bag in there as well. “I just have to grab my things,” she said placatingly.

The captain ruffled his mustache, and stepped down, still blocking the way. “We’re sinking, girl; we have to get to the lifeboats. No time to save your phone.”

Carmen bristled and tried to hold her ground as the captain continued to usher them down. “It’s really important.”

In her periphery, Mallory pointed behind them. “Oh my god, it’s growing wings!”

The captain straightened in alarm, shuffling forward down the steps to try and see. Mallory let go of her hand, ducking under the captain’s arm to slip past. Following her lead, Carmen flattened the to wall, squeezing through. Quick thinking.

They trampled up the steps to the deck room, darting for the door.

\--

Narma sunk down in the water as though she were cutting through jello, the weight of her sarong fanning out around her like a parachute impeding her aquadynamics. Still, her eyes opened to see water deepening and darkening around her. Her gaze shifted to both sides—there. A little way below, she could see the first victim slowly sinking. Paddling forward, she dived deeper, forcing her body through the water. No, she was moving too slow!

No choice. Pulling her hand from her pocket, she clenched the scepter, and detached the sarong, where it writhed down into the depths like some kind of jelly fish. Ability to move much improved, she kicked through the water, encouraged as the girl’s floating body came within reach.

She grabbed her under the arms. She had to get her to the surface—she hadn’t been the only one in the beast’s clutches. But she had to do one more thing first.

She’d never been holding on to anyone else when she’d done this before; would it even work? Using a fragment of her precious remaining air, she glubbed out, _“Egeria Star Power, Make-up!”_

_A kaleidoscope of light cut through the water._

Sailor Egeria nearly gasped as her vision cleared, success as her uniform resolving around her. Startlingly, she realized that the burn in her lungs was no longer as bad as it had been. Maybe that ran in the vein of the super-fast healing the transformation lended them. She was concerned for a second that her shoes were going to make it hard to swim, that she might have to ditch them, but looking down she realized they were different—flat, slick, clinging to her calves. The uniform can _adapt_? Tack that up to some magic shit, she guessed.

She looked to the girl beside her. _No time to spare, then._

The surged for the surface. Just as she had almost made it, she heard another splash, and then another one. Two more limp figures cut down into the water. That was too many, too fast. She had to enact her plan now.

She just hoped Rory had gotten the message.

She got the girl to the surface breaking through before she made the call. Scepter still tight in her fist, she thrust it out, letting go of the girl. Gasping through water, she dived below, turning upside-down. Through bubbles, _“Typhoon Strikedown!”_

She put all her intentions into the orientation. From above her, which from her flipped position was below the victims, bursts of water shot up through the surface of the ocean. The floating figures were caught with the streams, buoyed into the air. Come on.

For one moment, Egeria felt her heart sink as the figures began to fall back to the water, thinking the maneuver had been for naught. They were still going to drown.

But then, they seemed to freeze, floating. A familiar star-speckled wind held them suspended.

Peering up as she bobbed in the water, she spied Sailor Boreas, standing arms-extended on top of the sinking boat. She pumped a fist in the air, bobbing in the water. “ _Yeah_!”

\--

Sailor Boreas lowered the water-logged figures to the boat surface, where two of them coughed and turned over on their sides and the first one lay limp. Luckily, a fleeing chaperone noticed her and knelt down to check her.

“She was in the water,” Boreas shouted over the cacophony, and the man startled but seemingly got the message, moving to do CPR. She breathed. Hopefully, she would revive.

Out in the ocean, Sailor Egeria was cutting through the waves, pursuing the creature.

While at first, the creature seemed to only be able to handle a couple of people at a time, it was moving faster now, invigorated by the energy it had absorbed. She pointed to the area it was working in. “There are more guys over there,” she called to her cohort, who gave her a thumbs up. “Keep them out of the water until we can get that thing under control!”

She watched Egeria continue after the creature, anxious watching the other boats roving around them. Apparently, the other partiers had caught on that there was something going on, and the delivery boats ferried back and forth fishing folks out of the water but too scared to get too close. Sailor Boreas waited for others, concerned about the recovery time for Egeria’s typhoon attack, and she did her best to _Dire Gust_ folks who had just fallen in back onto the drooping boat. But sooner than she had expected, more bursts of water erupted from the surface, bringing her more civilians in need to resuscitation.

“Hey,” She turned her head to see Concordia and Decima standing alongside the stern. “We’re here what do you need?”

She appreciated Carmen’s willingness to take direction in a high-stakes situation, but she felt a little ill-equipped to give it. No time to dwell, though! “The folks we’re bringing in need reviving. Once we’ve gotten that under control, we have to take that thing down!”

“Got it,” Decima nodded, and the two moved into position. 

\--

Carmen headed down to the dented area of the boat, Mallory as Sailor Decima trailing right behind her. The structure racked with instability. She scanned the deck, looking for any passengers who weren’t breathing. Quickly, she identified a couple that weren’t breathing, and her gaze shot to Decima. “Do you know CPR?”

Mallory immediately shot back, “I have trained for a number of survival situations.”

Carmen paused, then nodded. “That’ll do.”

They tended to the victims until they could breathe on their own, and the next round of three that Narma tossed up were breathing. Carmen turned on Mallory. “We have to work now. This could be our only opening!” That thing was working through the swimmers easy as plucking petals.

“Wish I had my magnets.”

They moved further up along the rail, to higher ground. They took their position, watching dark wind yank civilians out of the water. Narma called out to them as she spied them on the boat. “You guys decide to join the party?”

“I am the party,” Mallory shot back and Narma laughed.

Carmen called, “What do you need from us?”

Narma didn’t hesitate. “Just go at this thing—whoa!”

Narma hadn’t even the chance to finish her sentence when the urchin-like monster grabbed her out of the water.

They jolted. As they watched helplessly, the creature thrashed, yanking their teammate back and forth. That thing’s going to really hurt her if we don’t move--!

With no time to lose, she raised her arms, bringing two fingers together on each side. “Harmonious Bellicoso!”

The harmonic barrage battered the creature, the ribbons of light circling it’s body like bonds. It shuddered, and despite its lack of a mouth it made a low bellowing noise. The waves picked up, and escapees yelped anxiously from their boats. Carmen clenched her teeth. _Can’t keep that up—too risky._

“Wonder how solid this thing is.”

Carmen perked, glancing back. “Hm?”

That was all the warning she got before Mallory-as-Decima called out a destiny chain. She stumbled out of the way, watching as the chain burst out from the boat. “M-Decima!”

“It held the other guy still,” Mallory clarified with upmost concentration on her face. “I wonder if I can use it other ways.”

Carmen whipped around, watching the chain loop not through, but beside the creature.

“Grab it!”

She hadn’t realized how close Narma was to the attack. To her shock, when the other soldier grabbed the chain it held, pulling her from the monster’s grip.

Mallory tipped up her chin. “Who needs a boomerang?”

Carmen gaped as Narma clung on long enough for the chain to return to Mallory’s hand. The girl’s grip failed a little too far back to land on the boat proper, but celestial breeze was summoned to catch her. “Oof.” It lowered her to the boat surface. “0/10, would not recommend. My headache is homicidal.”

Rory touched down beside them, holding herself with the same powerful aura that always seemed to overcome her in this state. “Good to have you back. What’s the plan.”

“Spike this thing like a football,” said Mallory.

“I think that metaphor’s a little backwards,” Narma rubbed her head.

Carmen turned to Rory. “My _bellicoso_ disturbs the water too much. It could endanger the people on the boats.”

“Got it. You’re benched, then.” Rory eyed the monster, who—

_Oh, boy, it seems it’s noticed the rest of us._ It bobbed through the water towards them, it’s fin-like arms paddling the distance with no small measure of speed.

“Guess that means we’re up,” Mallory crossed her arms, gaze unwavering from the beast. “We on the same wave length right now?”

Boreas said, “I think we are.”

Carmen had never seen this from the outside. The other times, she’d either been a part of it, or had been too distracted by other things to notice. Alyssa, the skating rink, self-hatred.

Their two cohorts seemed to find a formation—Rory with one arm out and the other over her head, and Mallory holding her arms in a circular position before her. Together, they called out, “Fate Cyclone!”

She felt it—the ping of two energies finding the same frequency. Mallory actually hadn’t been too far off with her “wavelength” comment. _So_ that’s _what happens?_

A swirl of air encircled the creature, until it was slowly lifted into the air. Within the gust, she could see bright streaks which she realized were a myriad of Mallory’s chains. They grabbed the beast by all limbs, holding it tight as it began to spin, faster and faster, the chains stretching taut. For a second, she thought they were going to pull it apart.

But then the creature bellowed, low and angry. One second it was there, and the next it had blipped out of existence like a TV turning off.

“Damn,” Mallory cursed. “I thought we had it.”

Rory frowned.

They stared out at the empty water, the last of the boats come to ferry the passengers home.

\--

They were all crowded in Rory’s living room, gathered around the TV wrapped in bath towels. They waited for the local news to find the right story with a stony atmosphere.

After the attack, they’ll all either had to blend into the scene or swim to shore. Carmen and Mallory had done the smart thing and retreated to the deck room so they could pretend they’d always been there. Narma laid on the deck, too drained (metaphorically and literally) to so anything else. Rory lowered herself into the water before flagging down a pick-up boat.

Rory had already fielded a shrill phone-call from her mother, who wanted to know exactly what had happened with an update on every bone she had. _Nothing broken, Mama. You can call off the Calvary._ It had taken nearly twenty minutes to talk her down from rushing home early.

Mama being still at the office and Tyrell not yet returned from school for the summer, it was just them and Celene. Their feline guide perched on the back of the couch, tired from subjecting them to an in-depth interrogation. It was almost like she’d gained a second mother, sometimes.

Rory got it. She was just worried; they both were. She stroked idly along the cat’s back. She was lucky to have people who cared so much.

“Hey,” Mallory interjected into the silence, “here it comes.”

The scene on the newscast changed, switching to clips of their boat askew.

_“Summer-Time Madness? Fun in the sun didn’t last for long today as the summer-kick-off event hosted by our very own Seattle Times took a scary turn. Torrential waves, which local geologists say may have been caused by some minor earthquakes in the area, swept the unsuspecting party-goers away. Passengers fled from the main ferry which was punctured by debris. Luckily, quick action by the local coastal authority retrieved the displaced from the water, leaving only minor injuries. That sure was a close one, Bob.”_

_“It sure was, Trisha. And now, in sports today—”_

Rory clicked off the TV, turning to the others with a thrum of excitement. “Did you see that?”

Narma blew a raspberry. “’Torrential waves.’ Bluh, not even a good lie. Get with it, King5.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Rory shook her head, leaning forward. “No casualties. We got everybody. That thing came out of nowhere, and we still took it down.”

Carmen held up a finger. “Technically, we were in our swimsuits.”

Mallory held out a fist to bump to that. “I’ll take a technicality.”

“Guys,” Rory drew their attention in. “We were in the middle of the ocean, okay, in our swimsuits, and we still handled that thing! If we can get caught vulnerable like that and still win, we have a chance against these things!”

The other girls had begun to perk up from their soggy slumps.

Rory slammed her fist into her palm. “I don’t care what they are, or what they want. They want to come into our city and cause this kind of mess? Then they’re gonna get messed up.”

“Yeah,” Narma burst out suddenly. “Yeah, you know what? Yes!”

Carmen clenched her fists, practically humming with energy. “You know, I think I’m just about ready to kick some ass.”

Mallory laughed. “Hell yes! Let’s show these freaks who they’re screwing with!”

For a few minutes, Rory felt the electric energy, the whole of them committed to this cause: to set things right again.

It was about darn time.

\--

Back home the next morning, Mallory lowered her glasses. She blinked at the screen, and put them back on. She wasn’t seeing things. This was it. She’d finally done it.

She nearly been on the verge of giving up. She only could have done a little bit more, she though, before she reached her limit. Another hour, maybe. Two tops. Maybe three.

The pulled up the messenger, quickly tagging in the group.

Mallory Dunbar [RW] opened group chat at 1:43 AM

[MD]: Rise and shine, bitches.

Narma Anand [NA] joined the group chat.

[NA]: ugh do you have any idea what time it is

[MD]: It’s 1:46 am. Pack your bags, ladies. We’re going camping. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part II coming in a few days...

**Episode 6: Obligatory Camping Trip Part I; Or, Suggestion of Convergent Evolution**

It was approximately one week and two days before Narma was set to begin her internship, and she was off to camp.

The bus chugged down the road where it had picked them up from the city center. It was a charter bus, but could have passed for one of the old reliables that roosted at their own school. The finishing on the seats was pealing up in chiaroscuro patterns, gum having to be carefully avoided by the position of their legs. She had dared to lay her head against the window and had promptly received a class-three concussion.

She did not enjoy long bus rides.

Rory, on the other hand, was practically ecstatic. She beamed at Narma from the other side of the seat. “Ooh, do you think we’re going to make smores? Oh, I would love a smore.”

“It’s an athletics camp,” Narma said flatly, but couldn’t keep the wry smile off her face. Her cheek swished against her palm. “I kind of doubt.”

Mallory, face painted pale blue by the light of her cellphone, continued to tap away as she spoke. “The schedule explicitly mentions three campfire jamborees over the span of the week,” she responded robotically. “I wouldn’t say it’s out of the question.”

Narma sat up, peering across at her team mate.

_Mallory Dunbar [MD] opened group chat at 1:46 AM_

_[MD]: Pack your bags, Ladies. We’re going to camp._

_Narma Anand [NA] joined the group chat._

_[NA]: Nope._

_[MD]: “Nope”?_

_[NA]: I’ve got my internship._

_Rory West [RW] joined the group chat._

_[RW]: How r u guys coherent I just woke up_

_[MD]: I checked for that. Camp runs through the next week, and the Seattle Institute of Design’s internship program begins the first week of June. You’re not exempt._

_[RW]: Whoa, wait, we’re going to camp?_

_[RW]: !!!!_

_Carmen Rodriguez [CR] joined the group chat._

_[CR]: Okay, am I the only person who’s going to question this?_

_[MD]: Your lack of faith wounds me, Carmen. Wounds me to the core._

_[CR]: No, I mean, *why* are we going to camp?_

_[MD]: Oh. Fair._

_[MD]: I’ve tracked down some possible suspects who seem like they could be involved with the creatures. They’re going to be present at the camp this week._

_[RW]: !!!!!! No way!_

_[MD]: I think it would behoove us to keep an eye on them._

…Mallory went on to tell them that the bus was leaving for camp that day at noon, and that she had managed to hack their way onto the list for the teen-to-adult group. She then sent an email to the camp administrator, complaining that she was just now seeing her name on the list, and even though she got the approval email it wasn’t letting her make the payment. Some class-A bullshit, Narma had to admit.

Apparently, the woman bought it because she took the payment info, Mallory’s house card coming in handy once again. After that, with the motivation that Mallory might have some kind of inside info as to what was going on, it was then up to them to convince their parents to let them go on a trip within a day’s notice.

Narma had played up the “I’m going to be working all summer; this is my one chance to get out”-card super hard.

Miraculously, here they were.

Carmen continued to neurotically tap at the window seal. On the little Narma could see of the girl’s own phone screen, there seemed to be a video playing of what Narma recognized to be Bob Ross. Carmen’s doe eyes winced when she noticed her watching, and she jerked the headphones from her ears. “Sorry,” she sighed, tossing them down into her lap. “This is really rude, isn’t it? I’m not trying to block you guys out.”

Rory’s expression softened, and she lowered her voice. “Hey, the city’ll be okay for a few days without us,” she said. “We can’t just not go anywhere ‘cause something might come up. That ain’t fair.”

Narma raised a finger. “And Celene’s keeping watch over the box.”  
“Oh, yes, my mistake,” Carmen smiled weakly, rolling her eyes.

“Celene does know more about this than any of us,” Mallory offered, “so that’s actually not such a mild statement.”

Rory pointed to her, pouting her lip out. “She _is_ right, though,”

Narma’s gaze wandered, stopping when she saw the back of the bus. “Why’s the bus so empty?”

Mallory remained glued to her screen. “The staff is going to be riding back with the campers. They came up a couple days early to get things ready, according to the administrator.”

She seemed awfully relaxed, for someone was supposed to be on a mission. For Mallory, especially, on a mission. Narma narrowed her eyes. “How did you say you found out about this inside person again?”

Mallory’s gaze moved, landing on her from over her sunglasses. “They’ve been present at several of the attacks. It’s worth looking into.”

She didn’t totally believe her, because as shockingly competent as Mallory had proven herself to be at investigation, her judgement and impulse control were dubious at best. Narma flopped back in her seat. Loudly, she announced, “I think Mallory just wants to go to camp.”

Rory grinned, and Carmen snickered into her fist. Rory gave a light punch to Mallory’s arm. “You just wanted to go to camp,” she teased, _aww_ in her voice. “Don’t worry, we’ll have mad smores.’

\--

The camp was just as one would have imagined it. They rolled up over the final hill to reveal rows of cabins, with a larger building far-right and a smaller paddock out of the way that Mallory was mildly horrified to guess was the showers. Otherwise, there was a fire site in the middle of the space and, leading to their far left, a small lake. She was also not feeling super great about being back on the water, even though they had kicked that the Urchin’s ass (she was taking it upon herself to name this one, because that thing was a cryptid, and no one could tell her otherwise.) Still, sacrifices have to be made in the name of the Truth.

And she was going to figure out what the heck was going on if it killed her.

Needless to say, her teammates weren’t thrilled.

When they departed the bus and she spotted her target almost immediately, she heard a groan from behind her. Rory made an agonized noise, yelling, “Oh, you have GOT to be KIDDING me!”

“Okay,” she amended, for their benefit, “It may only be one person.”

Gwen spotted her at the commotion, and infuriatingly only looked mildly surprised. She said nothing, continuing to direct the bus loads to one side or the other by camp-group, based on their differing ages. She was wearing a tight-fitting tank with red piping, the logo on which had to have been the camp’s. She wore that green army jacket over top she’d been wearing when they first met. Her braid was tied higher than it had been before. She looked utterly suspicious.

From behind her, Narma spoke up and she turned back to them. “Okay, am I out of the loop or something?”

Carmen paused from kneading between her eyes. “That’s the girl that Mallory met at the hospital.”

Narma peered back to the girl consideringly. “…well, she’s not my type, but you do you.”

Rory rose from where she’d slumped forward. “No, no, she—Mallory was interviewing her and she lied about her name.” She flicked a thumb towards her. “Yah girl was in a tizzy about it. Geez, is that seriously why we’re here? Because this seems kind of stalk-y.”

Of course, they weren’t taking this seriously. She stared Rory down. “She was nearby two of the attacks. She was also talking to the police about it. She gave them a fake name too.”

That seemed to stop them. Rory straightened. “Wait, really?”

There, now she had their attention. True, she happened to know there were some complicated situations running in the background for Gwen, but that information didn’t negate the possibility that something was up.

Because something _had_ to be up. The wills of fate knew this was the action she was going to take, and so circumstances had led her in this direction for a reason.

Right?

“She was at the hospital, and when she was at the police station, we were only a few minutes away from the bus incident, I really don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

“So what should we do about it?” Carmen asked quietly.

They weren’t exactly subtle, staring forward from the back of the mass of unloading passengers, looking directly at her with a measure of more concern than they had a few seconds ago, but that can’t exactly be helped.

“Okay,” Rory held her hands out as if to physically get them all together. “For now, let’s just keep an eye on her. Do the camp, play it cool, and if we see anything, say something.”

Carmen leaned in. “Should we try to get more information out of her? For instance, should we ask her directly?”

Mallory snorted. “You can try,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “I’ve been grilling her on and off for weeks to no joy.” She rolled her shoulders back. “But I have to go say something. She already knows I’m here—playing keep away is only going to draw more attention to you guys. Maybe she won’t be expecting you guys to be looking into it too. I don’t think she’d recognize you.”

With that, she marched forward.

The others follow the established groups of small children (yikes) and teen-to-adults to their suitable assignment as the counselors chatted amongst themselves, trying to get it their charges under control. Gwen was stayed where she had been, not bothering to make herself scarce as Mallory approached. Cocky.

“…and she approaches,” She clicked a pen on her clipboard. “I shouldn’t be surprised. You’ve managed to track me down everywhere else.”

She couldn’t help but feel an odd sense of pride—maybe a little bragging wouldn’t hurt. “Once you mentioned that the camp was starting this week, it was merely a matter of finding the camps that had athletics classes for children.” There were hundreds. “A quick look at the staff told me where you’d be.” Hours and hours. She was lying, but it sounded more impressive if she didn’t let out quite how much she had obsessed over needing to know. Wasn’t cool.

Since when has she cared about being cool?

Gwen’s mouth did that thing where it twitched up a little—was this funny to her? Mallory felt her blood boil. “I was wondering when you would show up, to be honest. I knew once I mentioned where I was going that that might be enough, but it’s interesting to get a look into your process.”

Hold up. Mallory leaned back. “…you _wanted_ me to show up?” She called bullshit; she had to be bluffing.

But Gwen shrugged. “Mm, maybe. What can I say? I can’t help but be a little curious to see how far you’ll go with this. And all the attention? Kind of flattering.”

Mallory felt her ears redden. “This is serious,” she hissed. “People are in danger, and I know you have something to do with it. What did you say to the police?”

Gwen pursed her lips tilting her head to the side. “You’re making an awful lot of leaps here. Regardless, it’s time for check-in.” She turned, and began to walk away without further ceremony. “Maybe you should ask me tomorrow. For now, get in your group.”

Mallory seethed. Defeated, she stomped back over to the teens-and-adults group, where Rory, Carmen, and Narma were sat waiting for her.

“What happened?” Carmen whispered, leaning in conspiratorially as she sat down.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Mallory grumbled.

Gwen wasn’t leading their group. Unfortunate, but she knew that was coming; she’d seen the group leader list online. As she had predicted, Gwen was helping out with the kids.

The woman who came to stand before them looked heart-droppingly similar to a middle school PE teacher—robust, red-cheeked, and with the classic mop of brown curls atop her head. Unlike that, though, she actually looked excited to be there. “Happy to see that everybody made it! So, this is how it’s going to work. Over the course of the week, we will have a series of classes and activities for you guys to do, to make sure you get a taste of the outdoors this summer.”

_Oh happy day._

“We’ve got hiking, archery, you’ll get time to use the lake, kayaking, optionally. What else…ah, fishing, volley ball, we have a basket ball court if you want it, tennis, golf. Everyone will be attending a survival session with one of our counselors in the woods. Should be a ton of fun.” She clapped sharply.

Hm, no fencing. That was…unexpected. She hadn’t looked that far into it.

She gestured to the cabins behind them. “When I call your names, you can head off to the cabin number I give you and unpack. After that, meet up in the dining hall, and we’ll have a little lunch before we start our first activities.”

After a few more exchanged words, the groups stood and began to congregate, eager to prance into the woods already. It seemed they had their orders.

She was just going to have to see how this played out.

\--

Mallory had requested they all be in together, and the administrator had approved, so that wasn’t trouble any trouble. She and her three cohorts dragged their gear to Star cabin (which pinged of a little irony, when Carmen thought about it) and quickly unpacked before heading to the dinning hall. As they passed through the courtyard towards the facility, though, Carmen caught a glimpse of green out of the corner of her eye. Not unusual in a forest, but this was a bright, pastel shade that hadn’t been around since the very beginning of spring.

Across the way, she saw the girl turn the corner into a building a little further down the path. She couldn’t tell what the building was for, but there didn’t seem to be any others going towards it. And besides, she would have recognized that color in a crowd.

Sylvia? What’s she doing here? Weird coincidence. She hadn’t spoken to the girl since the bus stop.

No, actually, she realized as her eyes widened a fraction. She had seen her since then, technically. They just hadn’t spoken after she loaded on the bus.

Maybe she should mention this? Carmen wasn’t sure; an investigator, she was not. Still, it was better to be safe than to be off-guard. She finished the short walk into the dining hall, where the others were already waiting for her.

A tall woman with bleached braids (smaller than Rory’s; how did she even get them so tiny?) took center stage in the room, along with a guy with scruffy brown hair and a farmer’s tan. As your group leader will have explained, this is going to be where you’ll sign up for the classes you want to take. There will be free-form activities in your down time, but some of the classes do have limited availability, so please sign up if you are interested. After that—” she gestured to the filled table behind them. “—take a sandwich from the bar and we will go over some camp rules. Once everybody’s eaten, we’ll split up and go for our first hike of the week.”

The guy spoke up. “Sign-up sheets are coming around. Thank you, guys.”

The room quickly dissolved into commotion as folks moved to get their food, and also sign up for the limited classes. She grabbed food for all of them, and by the time she made it back out of line the sign-up sheet had come around.

“Ooh, archery sounds fun,” she heard Rory say as she took her seat.

“Not me,” said Narma. “I prefer to avoid projectiles whenever possible.”

“Fair.”

Mallory was studying the list intently, finger pausing on the names of each of the activity leaders. She must be trying to get in the classes with the girl in the hospital.

Carmen leader down closer to the table. “Hey, guys?”

“What’s up?” Narma ask tearing into her veggie wrap.

Carmen pursed her lips. “It might just be a coincidence, but there’s someone else here I recognize from the attacks.”

Rory paused her own bit, and Mallory stopped reading. The girl pushed her sunglasses up—I really have to tell her to try going without them—and said sharply, “Who.”

Carmen couldn’t help but peer to her either side, as if someone would be listening. _Mallory’s paranoia must be rubbing off on me a little_ _(though it’s not really paranoia if they are actually out to get you, is it? That’s an unfortunate thought, thanks anxiety.)_ “There’s a girl here I met just before the bus incident. She introduced herself to me sort of out of the blue as well? She stopped me in the park. That was right before the monster appeared.” She fiddled with the corner of her napkins. “You’ll know her if you see her. She’s got bright green hair.”

“That is a little weird.” Rory nodded her head side-to-side non-committaly. “I mean, Seattle’s a big city. What are the chances you met someone and there was immediately an attack in the area?”

“Also, why _there_?” Narma chewed with a humorous level of concentration. “I know we were thinking they were just going where it was the most heavily populated, but the bus attack doesn’t make sense, then. It’s just one bus, and the street might be busy but it’s not _that_ busy. You know?”

“Hm.” Mallory stared down on the paper, her finger tapping over one of the names—it looked like _Sarah_ something. “It might be worth looking into. Good job, Carmen.”

Carmen peeled at the wrapper of her sandwich. “Don’t get me wrong, she seemed nice, but…”

She let the thought trail off. If she was here to help stop the attacks, then that’s what she was going to do.

But she hoped she was wrong.

They finished their lunch, chatting idly. Still, Carmen’s gaze kept drifting to the blond counselled across the room, joking loudly with her co-workers as if nothing was wrong.

\--

The first activity of the week was set to a hike up the nearby mountain. That seemed like a lot to start off with right off the bat to Narma, but the others seemed excited about it. Rory didn’t seem to be having any trouble, but she was already out of breath. Even with all of the combat training they got up to, this was a whole separate hell. She wiped sweat from her forehead.

“See? Rory turned towards her, walking backwards up the incline. “This is fun!”

Carmen, slightly behind them, maneuvered around a jutting bolder. “I can’t remember the last time I was anywhere near a forest,” she said. “It’s so peaceful.”

“Pinging those harmony-sensors?” Narma huffed, humoring her. Even if she wasn’t built for this bullshit, it didn’t mean she didn’t want her friends to enjoy it. After all, she wasn’t going to get to spend a lot of time with them after this.

“Yeah,” Carmen said. “Maybe a little, actually.”

Narma shook her head.

Meanwhile, Mallory had trudged on ahead, trying to catch up the girl that was leading the kid’s group along side them, looked perturbed and a little sweaty.

“Yeah, isn’t this great guys?” Their own group leader called out, whose name was Deborah. “Getting a little inter-camp bonding going on! We’re all going to have a great time this week.”

She would never catch up to them. There was a whole sea of children in the way.

She peered down over the ridge. It was, admittedly, beautiful—the valley stretched out before them in a sea of soft green, highlighted with the warm glow of the evening sun. The sky was clear and the lack of a breeze brought a profound stillness over the scene. Some bird chittered in the woods behind them. Also, there was no city smell out here. That was maybe the best part.

“Meh,” Narma proclaimed to the ether.

Carmen snickered behind her.

Rory, who was doing a lot of deep, appreciative lungfuls of fresh mountain air, slowed her step. “…do you ever wonder…why we’re here?”

“A little too philosophical for me, girl,” Narma stepped up beside her.

“No, I mean, here. On earth.” From the directionality of the sun, light shown a glint over her eyes, the reddening sky leaving highlights in the thick parts of her violet braids. It was a far-away look, and not one she felt totally at ease with.

Narma took a breath. “Well, sure. I think we all must have, in this whole mess. With the… _problems_ appearing where ever they wish, I at least think we’re in place as a force against that.”

Rory slowly shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. Why here?” Her gaze floated up, above the horizon, drifting up towards the atmosphere. “Trappist-1 is 40 light years from here. 232 trillion miles away.” That number, so precise. “So what are we doing here, on earth?”

The sky stretched out before them. And that…was a really good question, actually.

\--

Day one of Operation Get-Gwen-to-Tell-Her-What-the-Fuck-Her-Deal-is was a total failure.

This might have been a more difficult set up than she was prepared for. With the separation of the groups out to various activities, there were going to be fewer opportunities to interrogate Gwen (or “Sarah”) than she had expected. It seemed the only consistent times where they were guaranteed to be in the same room was at most meals, but Gwen was unlikely to spill her secrets in front of her co-workers. There were only a few activities she was able to tell for a fact they were going to have the chance to speak. She was going to have to be really strategic about this.

She slid her jacket off, the scent of her deodorant thick beneath. Damn her dedication to a vibe. Rory and Narma had opted for a night shower, and were off at the distressed wooden stalls. Carmen was folding up her clothes from the day to be packed away in the opposite bunk, looking content. A faint sheen of sweat lingered on her forehead, and she looked to be settling down.

Mallory fluffed her pillow with perhaps more aggression than warranted, feeling a sort of pit in her chest. She was disarmed by moments like this—her cohorts seemed to be integrating so well into this environment, but all she could thing about was the work. It made her wonder, sometimes, if there were something she just wasn’t getting. What if her efforts were wasted on a false lead here? Perhaps the others were doing the natural thing, taking this opportunity to have a few carefree moments while there was so much waiting for them back home. Maybe she was the silly one, chasing after something that very well may have been nothing but a girl who was expertly trolling her.

She pursed her lips, smoothing out her comforter. She hated, couldn’t stand the thought that the people who had never taken her seriously, maybe they were right to feel that way.

God, it was only the first _day. Get it together._

A familiar raw feeling as she moved brought her attention to her bra band. _Esh, freaking underwire._ The burden of having C-cups. She wondered if the others would care if she went without one in the cabin.

Turning, she realized that Carmen probably wanted to change too, and it was a bit of a hike to the stalls just for that. She coughed lightly, getting the girl’s attention. When Carmen looked up, and nudged a thumb at the door. “Hey, do you…want me to step out? So you can change?”

There was something unspoken in the question _: I know I make you uncomfortable sometimes._ It was a fact she was aware of, and while it didn’t make her feel her feel great, she could admit it was warranted. She just didn’t have a filter, sometimes. It didn’t usually bother her, but now that she had people that she actually liked. That seemed to like her, sometimes. It was….different.

Carmen seemed to consider it for a moment, but then, surprisingly, “No, that’s okay. I do want to…you mind turning around for a minute?”

Oh. Okay then.

“Yeah, sure. Hold on.” Mallory shifted, turning to face the cabin wall. “Just let me know when you’re good.”

She could hear the shift of Carmen retrieving her pajamas, and the moment of unexpected trust tugged at something in her chest. Damn, she was good at research. Bad at people. “Hey…uh. I hope this doesn’t sound weird, but…”

“Hm?”

She hesitated, her hand drifting up to rub over her arm. “I just wanted to say sorry, I guess. I know I act like an idiot sometimes. Like, that embarrassing shit I pulled at the party.”

Ugh, that had been cringe-inducing as hell. Usually it took more time for her to be able to look back on something she’d done and think, _ew, that was pretty gross_ , but nope, five weeks this time. A record. Making moves on your new, probably straight teammate who actually tolerates you? _New low, good job._

Carmen didn’t say anything, so she continued. “But…I just want you to know that that’s not all I think of you. I’m not good communicating with people, especially if I admire them. That’s not an excuse! Just.” I wanted you to know that I have the upmost respect for you and I hope you can forgive me for the dumb shit I pulled just because I can’t keep it in my pants. Metaphorically.” Yikes, this was getting out of control. _Reign it in, mayday, mayday_. “I just hate to think that I might be tainting our friendship by not letting you know how important you taking me under your wing in this whole thing has been. I value your guidance, and your strategic contributions to the team are invaluable and you can stop me any time, because it’s absolutely possible I will just keep rambling like an idiot if there’s no interference please say something—"

“Um??”

The interjection was…watery, that was concerning, and she did a split-second safety glance before turning around. There was Carmen, standing stiffly in her clean pajamas and oh Jesus she was crying, her eyes were all watery. Mallory _panicked_. “ _Oh, shit_ —I didn’t mean—” Her hands flew up. “I’m an idiot, an absolute dunce, whatever I said—”

“No! No.” Carmen shook one hand at her. Carefully, she brought the hand up and thumbed the moisture from her eye. Glancing away. “I just—no one has ever said that to me before, the—respect thing? Thank you for telling me. You don’t know how much it means to me, to hear you say that.”

Mallory sat back down, where she had come up crouching like some sort of gremlin. “Oh. Well. You’re welcome.” It disturbed her that she was reacting like this, and it made her more than a little angry, but not at Carmen. She was just glad though that she hadn’t upset her.

Carmen sat back down, folding her hands in her lap. “You wouldn’t know, ‘cause you weren’t around yet. But right around the time the others found me, I was in a really bad place. Meeting the others helped me reevaluate, but I’m still dealing with a lot of the same stuff, mentally? It’s just an ongoing thing.”

She tightened her hands in her lap, and Mallory felt that same pit in her chest—that maybe she’d really been missing the point here. She’d had an inkling that Carmen wasn’t as poised as she appeared, but to know that so recently she’d been on a downslide, was…jarring. “I’m sorry,” she said eventually. “Do you…want to talk about it?”

Carmen bit her lip. Then, her head rose, and she smiled. “Maybe later. It’s nice enough to know you care.”

Rory and Narma burst in through the door just then, shrieking, “THE SHOWERS ARE FREEZING oh my gosh guys we are camping in the ARCTIC—”

Carmen grinned into her wrist. She allowed the moment to dissolve, shelved for a moment when they weren’t lightened by the antics of their friends.

There was a time and place. Better to let her decide when she was ready to engage.

\--

On day two, they all stood before the lake with a sense of mutual apprehension.

“If I see white spikes pop out of that thing,” Narma said, “I’m out.”

After a nice round of morning yoga (which Mallory hated, but Rory herself had thought was kind of fun,) the counselors had brought them to the lake to cool off before lunch. The sun was already high, and it wasn’t playing, burning a warm patch along the upper part of her back.

Celene would have enjoyed being out in the sun. Rory felt bad about not being able to bring her, but guarding the Cosmos Treasure Box was important if they weren’t going to be around. She would have to do something special for the little cat as soon as they got a chance.

Their counselor Deborah called out over the water. “I’ll give you guys a chance to get used to the water, and we can do some races!”

Rory had missed getting exercise for fun.

Carmen shrugged eventually and dove under the water, coming up with a shudder at the temperature. “Well,” she said. “We can’t sit on the beach all day.”

“But we can try,” Mallory said with confidence, before laying out her towel and plopping down, hands behind her head. _Well, those sunglasses are coming in handy for once, at least._

Carmen stuck her tongue out, teasing. “More fun for us, then. Rory, care to join me?”

Holding back a snicker, Rory hiked her eyebrows way up, like some kind of fussy white lady at a country club, and gave a curtsy. “Why, don’t mind if I do,” and she flounced into the water. That was a mistake, goosebumps immediately leaping up on her legs. _Yeesh! Work harder, sun!_

“Splendid,” Narma copied, shrieking once she was in the water.

“Suffer,” Mallory said flatly.

They paddled around for a while, Carmen going a little bit deeper, while she and Narma were more just goofing around. This was nice, being able to just chill for a little while. The lurking danger at home could take a back seat for like five minutes while she spent some time with her main girl.

Because as much as she liked Carmen for her sincerity and Mallory for her off-beat charisma, Narma was still her best friend. It would probably always be that way. At least, she liked to think it would, even if they were dipping their toes into different parts of the water more recently.

Speaking of which. “Hey,” Rory eyed her friend, who was wiping water from her cheek where Rory had managed to nail her only seconds before. “How are things going with that guy of yours?” She waggled her eyebrows a little.

Narma shrugged, but didn’t look directly at her. Rory thought the whole thing was cute—Narma hadn’t shown a lot of interest in anyone since they had met, so it was nice to see her branching out a little bit. “We’ve been talking a lot. The party on the boat was sort of supposed to be a kind-of-date thing I had initiated, but we know how that went.” Narma quirked her thick brow, for once without its coat of gel. She sighed. “I’m just glad he didn’t get hurt.”

Rory’s smile faltered. “Yeah, of course.”

Her eyes brightened for a moment. “He was able to swim back because once his uncle’s fishing boat sunk and they had to swim all the way to a nearby cruise line and climb aboard. It was wild. And he still does it!”

She laughed. “You guys are cute.”

“We’re supposed to be going on a date to the pier when I get back, so that should be good.” Narma pushed a little ripple through the water, expression turning contemplative. “…do you think this kind of thing can work? With the…way we are?”

Ridiculously, for a second, her first thought jumped to race. Probably because she knew how Narma’s parents were about her finding a “nice Hindi boy.” Then she realized she was obviously talking about the whole alien super-heroes with magical powers thing. Actually, was that also kind of a race thing? “Yeah,” she shot out after realizing she hadn’t responded yet, and Narma looked a little less deflated. “Yeah, of course. I mean, it’s probably going to be tough, hiding something that big from someone you care about—”

And she was kind of a specialist in that kind of thing recently, wasn’t she?

Thrown off, she shook her head, re-grouping. “—but hey, people have had bigger stuff than that come between them, right? And they’ve made it work.”

Narma narrowed her eyes. “I…guess that’s true.”

And Rory hoped that she didn’t think about that too hard, because she hadn’t been prepared with an example to defend that statement. But it had to be true, right?

Rory through out her arm. “Yeah! I wouldn’t worry about it, girl. You got this. Also, if he could attacked by a monster on your first date and still want to stick around, the boy is obviously into you.”

“Hey b-squad and e-squad.”

Rory looked over to see that Mallory had been talked into the water and was staring at them pointedly. “I have been challenged,” Mallory said, “and so I must absolutely destroy Carmen at chicken. You in?”

Rory and Mallory were in the water in 40 seconds, Carmen and Narma cackling as evil as they could be from above.

\--

Archery class. Surprise, surprise; it turned out fencing wasn’t Gwen’s only talent in obscure sports. As they stepped onto the green on the morning of day three, Mallory already knew what she would find there, but it still felt odd to walk up to the target field with Gwen already waiting for her (for them, she meant. For the class she was going to teach.) It had seemed so much like she’d been avoiding her up until then, impossible to catch her alone.

_“Ask me tomorrow.”_ _I would, if you give me five seconds to speak to you discreetly._

It didn’t matter—she was there now. She was finding with a growing sense of urgency that this may have been her only opportunity. The last night had been host to their first Fireside Jamboree, and, surprise, only the older group. She had to make this time count.

“Welcome, everybody,” Gwen called from the front. “You may remember me from introductions, but we’re going to get to know each other a little better today. My name is Sarah—”

_“Bullshit,”_ Mallory grumbled under her breath.

“—and I’m going to be leading you through some basics in archery. Now, people tend to assume that archery is easier than it is, and while it’s not _hard_ per say, it does require discipline, and safety is very important. Now, has anyone done archery before?”

A fair few hands, mostly from campers older than them.

“Well, good! It’s nice that some of you have some experience. So, I think we’re good to get started. If everyone could grab a bow and three arrows, I’m going to show you guys the basics before we actually start shooting.”

The others were excited for this, Rory and Carmen chatting energetically to each other as Narma eyed the targets. Still, you could see that they were distracted in the way they gazed wearily to and away, aware now that their teacher had frankly been shady as hell. Mallory in and of herself wasn’t exactly zazzed to learn archery, but she had particular stakes and so here she was.

“Thank you. Now, I want to say first of all: I know it’s tempting, but _do not_ hold and release your bowstring with nothing in it. Bad idea. That’s called dry firing, and it’s the quickest way to break your bow. Got it?” Murmured agreement. “Cool. Now, there are a couple different ways you can stand—”

She took them through a number of little technicalities: standing feet parallel or not, nocking the arrow, holding their body straight and picking an anchor point. Usually, she would have been interested in the minutia of this kind of thing, even if she didn’t want to do it herself, just because she could appreciate a craft. But today, she only had one goal: get Gwen to freaking talk.

“Okay. If everybody is lined up to the targets, we can try our first shot. Anybody not on target right now, please stand back by a couple feet and you will go next round. Please do not fire until I say. Alright?”

Gwen stepped forward, and Mallory was hyper aware of her position in space as she moved through them to stand behind. The next instructions she called out were from right behind her, maybe a yard or two back. The hair on the back of her neck prickled.

Never mind, fuck it, she needed to make this shot.

“Get ready now,” Gwen’s voice echoed through the trees from behind her.

Mallory kept the bow firmly wedged between her thumb and forefinger, double checking the arrow’s alignment.

“One. Two.”

Flashbacks to the fencing studio, a little shot of adrenaline at the memory of Gwen staring her down like she didn’t stand a chance, only 1 second in a countdown between her and defeat. She narrowed her eyes.

“Three.” The hint of a laugh there?

_Fwp._

She lowered the bow—agh, she hadn’t checked the target, bad follow through—and looked to the results of her shot.

Well, she’d hit it. Frustration bubbled up to see the arrow sitting just at the inner edge of the first ring. Passable, but not effective. _Damn._

“Maybe we should try again,” Gwen said. No, she wasn’t imagining it, there it was—that same amusement in her voice. “Alright, group two, line up, and then we can do some more rounds. Don’t fire until I say so.”

Mallory switched out with the team behind her, leaving her standing there with Gwen. The others stepped up, and went through the motions to get ready, the grass squeaking beneath their shoes.

Surprisingly, Gwen addressed her when she came towards her, her voice low as to not attract attention. “Nice shot.”

_Bullshit,_ Mallory thought again bitterly. “Something funny?”

Gwen’s mouth ticked up. She was wearing some kind of chapstick or something, smirk reddish and shiny in the morning light. “I just noticed you were trying to impress me. I have to wonder about that.”

No, she wasn’t. Mallory rejected the thought immediately, then paused. Well, no—she could acknowledge that she cared more when she knew Gwen was watching. But it wasn’t that she was trying to impress her. It was more that the thought of _failing_ in front of her soured her stomach. Because she was almost like a nemesis at this point, really. That made sense. She fiddled with the frames of her sunglasses, tucked into her shirt. “Sorry, should I _want_ to fail?”

Gwen looked her up and down briefly, as if to size her up. “I could give you some pointers, if you want.”

Mallory scowled. “You know that’s not why I’m here.”

“Oh look, it’s time for the next round. Everybody set? Okay, draw back your bow—”

_Dammit!_

She took them through a couple more rounds of shots, and then moved them out of the lineup to take questions and let those who wanted to keep practicing do so. Mallory tried a couple more times while the questions line thinned out, and managed to get it a little closer, but never on the bullseye.

Eventually, she abandoned her bow; _no reason to continue this pretense._ According to her watch, they still had another twenty minutes in this session. Nowhere to run.

Gwen was standing off to the side, and she knew the girl saw her coming. “That time already? Alright. Let the interrogation begin.”

Mallory cocked a fist on her hip. “You say that as if you intend to answer.”

Gwen shrugged, before pulling her braid over her shoulder in a more deliberate position. “I might. Depends on what you ask.”

Mallory took a breath. She didn’t believe that at all, but she wasn’t going to get anywhere if she didn’t ask anyways. She replaced her sunglasses. She felt sort of…exposed without them. “Why did you come to this city?”

She waved a hand. “I was investigating.”

Okay. Surprise, an answer, but she already knew that. “I had figured,” she said flatly. “Can’t be professional; you don’t look any older than me.”

“I suppose that’s fair to say.”

She narrowed her eyes. Obviously, she was going to dance around this whole thing, even though she was indulging her for some reason. But perhaps she could context clue herself into something that was actually useful. “Why were you at the hospital that day?”

“That’s what I was investigating.”

Now, hold on. _That doesn’t make any sense._ “You’re from Phoenix,” she said. “You’re telling me you drove 22 hours to investigate an incident that wouldn’t happen for another ten hours?”

Gwen seemed caught off guard. After a second, she said, “You’re just going off the time we were reported missing. You don’t know we had left before then.”

“No,” Mallory conceded, “but you had to be in the city long enough for it to have been reported in the news.”

Gwen folded her arms across her chest. You could tell she was a sports person—the muscles of her biceps were lean and defined. “I’m not changing my answer.”

Ugh, there’s the first wall, but that could have been telling. You can’t know something’s going to happen before it happens unless you’re involved. Mallory’s heart thudded, mind rife with possibility. _Was_ she responsible for the attacks? For some reason, that conclusion didn’t fill her with the satisfaction of a closed case the way she had imagined. If she had to put a name to the sensation that rose in her, it was more like a tendril of _dread_.

She huffed, tightening her fists. “Tell me this,” she said. “What did you talk to the police about? What do you know about the monsters?”

Gwen’s amused expression had waned, dipping at the edges into unease. Finally, she said, “I didn’t interview the police about the monsters.”

That—why else would she have been in that hospital room? She shook her head. “You’re contradicting yourself,” she said. “What did you ask them about, then?”

There was a long pause. And then Gwen said, _“I was asking them about the heroes_.”

Cold dropped into Mallory’s gut, like a hunk of ice.

That…hadn’t even occurred to her. But…that would make sense, if she was coming into the city about the reports about _them_ , then it wouldn’t be weird that she arrived before the first attack took place. Coincidental timing, but not impossible.

It didn’t mean she was innocent.

If anything, it made her _more_ of a threat.

What the hell did she _know_?

“That seems like a lot of trouble,” she said, carefully tailoring her expression. “You and your sister pick up and runaway to a new city so you can chase some fake-ass superheros?” Inside, her heart was pounding.

Gwen was quiet for a long moment, eyes trained on Mallory’s face. She wondered what she was getting out of her expression. Eventually, she glanced away, brow smoothing, lightening. “Hm.” she said eventually. “How about we talk about you for a minute?”

“What? No.” She was the one asking the questions here. “Why?”

“You seem to know a lot about me,” Gwen’s lip quirked up. “Maybe I want to even the field a little. I’ve been pretty cooperative, haven’t I?”

…She had. Surprisingly so. “…depends on the questions.”

“Fair enough,” Gwen shrugged. “What do you do in your free time?”

…what. The tension fizzled out like some kid’s balloon when no one showed up to his Digimon birthday party. _That_ was what she was going to ask? That didn’t have anything to do with anything. Still, she found she really couldn’t think of anything, except the obvious. She gestured before herself. ”This, I guess? Why do you care?”

Gwen squinted at her. She ignored the question. “So you just run around investigating all the time?”

“Yeah. So?”

Gwen frowned, looking skeptical. “Your parents don’t care that you’re just running rampant?”

Mallory snorted. “Might care, if I had ‘em.”

Gwen’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

She could see it coming, so she cut that shit off at the root. “Before you say ‘I’m sorry,’ don’t. That’s not my, like, defining character trait, so don’t think that gives you anything valuable. Ask better questions.”

Gwen’s mouth quirked up. “Alright. What’s your favorite food and why?”

No hesitation. “Any sushi with wasabi sauce. I enjoy melting my face off.”

Gwen grinned. “Raspberry-peach protein shakes are my weakness.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

\--

Carmen was lining up the arrow again when she heard someone coming up behind her. “Hey, you’re pretty good.”

She turned, slowly taking the tension out of the string to see their instructor approaching. Carmen blinked, surprised—she’d thought Mallory was confronting her. “Oh. Thank you?”

“Really,” the girl who had called herself Sarah stated. She was eyeing the target Carmen had been aiming for. “You have good form. Seems you’re a natural.” She must have noticed Carmen searching out Mallory in the field, where she spotted her pouting a ways off. She flicked a thumb towards her. “Oh, her? She got mad because I asked her what kind of music she listens to when she’s stalking around the city. You mind lining up again?”

Carmen…wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Sure.” But hey, perhaps it was better that she was speaking to them more. More opportunities for her to let something slip.

If she was actually hiding anything, that is. It…kind of sounded like she just liked getting Mallory’s goat? It easily could have been an act, though.

She drew back the arrow, and she felt the girl’s hand cup her arm. “Let your elbow relax a little,” She said. Carmen’s eyes flicked over, and the girl was focused on the target ahead. “Also, the band is not going to bounce back and hit you. If you can pick an anchor point alongside your face, like your nose or your cheekbone, that’s gone to help steady your aim a bit more.”

She other hand lightly shifted the position of Carmen’s right arm, so that the string was following the curve of her cheek. Carmen shifted her toes, settling a bit until the form felt a bit more natural. “

“Okay,” she said. “Try now.”

She aimed, and yes, that did feel a little steadier. She let it go.

It wasn’t a full bullseye, but it did hit the center target off to the side.

“Yeah!” The girl crowed enthusiastically. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

“Hey—”

The cry from off-left was all the heard before someone crashed into her side. It wasn’t an enormous amount of force, but it was enough to send her stumbling to the ground. She hit elbow first, and pain went ringing up her arm; she hissed.

“Ay, watch it! No horseplay!”

“Sorry!” Another camper said nearby.

“Geez, I thought this was the adult group,” ‘Sarah’ scolded from above. She knealed beside her. “Are you okay?”

She brought up her arm, a little of her concern dissipating when the pain didn’t get any worse. “Agh, just hit it. I’m fine.”

Sarah clenched her teeth, “ _Yeeah_ , looks a little scraped too. Can you move it?”

Carmen flexed the arm up and down, only feeling a slight stinging with the ache.

“Okay, doesn’t seem broken.” Standing, she pointed to a small building a little ways in to the camp. “Head to the first aid station, and my sister can fix you up.”

_Sister?_ Carmen glanced back to the field, where Mallory had wondered down the range to where Rory and Narma were tugging their arrows free of the target. It seemed a little unnecessary to pull one of them away to come with her. “Okay.”

Cradling her arm, she crunched over the path back towards the camp.

The round was quiet, the other group off on the kayak trip with the other counselors. For a second, she got the inkling that she had seen noted this building before for some reason, before she pushed the door open and stepped inside.

“One second,” a high, monotonous voice called from an inner room. “The nurse has stepped out, but I can help with basic injuries. If you believe you are having a heart attack, we can call 911—"

“Sylvia!” Carmen as the girl’s bright green locks came around the corner. _So this is where she’s been._

“Oh. Hello again.” She blinked at her for a moment, before her eyes gravitated towards her arm and she moved towards the cabinet. “Do you think you are…dying?”

Carmen straightened. “Um. No?”

Sylvia fished into the cabinets, pulling out a roll of gauze and a pad. She turned back to her, primly straight, clasping her hands. “Are. You going. To vomit?”

“No,” Carmen shook her head.

“Good, good.” Sylvia nodded. “I have to ask for the by-laws. So just the elbow, then.”

Okay, well. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m the nurse’s assistant,” she said simply. “My sister teaches the kids, so I came along too.” She smiled faintly. “There are _so_ many bugs in the woods around here, I’ve added at least a dozen species—” she paused, and her face fell. “I still don’t have my beetles.”

“That’s okay,” Carmen said, taking a seat on the room’s cot. It eased her mind a little to know that the bugs were some type of collection, but she also didn’t know how to feel about the fact that Sylvia was just _keeping_ them somewhere. Then Sylvia’s words seemed to catch up to her. “Your sister,” she said. “Is that Sarah?”

Sylvia stopped fishing through the cabinets, stilling for a long moment. “…Yes,” she said eventually.

Carmen wondered about the reaction for a moment before realizing it might have confused her because Sarah _wasn’t her sister’s real name_. So, Mallory was right about that. “She seems nice.”

“She cares a lot,” Sylvia said, with a new tone Carmen didn’t expect—it almost came off a little weary. But Sylvia’s intonations were already so minor, it was hard to tell.

Carmen tilted her head. “…a little _too_ much?”

Sylvia loaded the items into a little basket (why not just carry them?) and brought them over, sitting beside Carmen on the office cot. “This might sting.” She brought up a little pad of alcohol and cleaned the scrap and yes, ow, _ow,_ that did hurt. A moment later, she discarded the alcohol and delicately placed a little patch where it was bleeding. “A little tender,” Sylvia said. “I have an ice pack I can give you.”

“Thanks.”

The quiet hung as she went to unroll the gauze, the soft kind that didn’t stick to itself. She held her hand out for Carmen’s arm, and Carmen lifted it slightly so she could wrap.

"I guess," she sighed and it took a second for Carmen to realize she was answering her earlier question. Her gaze flicked up for just a second, pale blue. "You know when you look at someone, and you don't know what they're thinking, and you don’t want to look at them _because_ you don’t know what they're thinking?"

"Yes, actually," Carmen said, somewhat emphatically, "I know exactly what you mean."

"She's like the opposite." While her voice didn't change, her expression was agonized. "I _always_ know what she's thinking. I've seen the same things on her face—repeating patterns. It either means she's wondering about me, what am _I_ doing, or she's thinking of doing something impulsive again, like baiting that girl here because she wants to teach everybody everything all the time." She taped the wrapping off, then slumped. She closed her eyes, head tipped up to the ceiling. "And she thinks she always needs to teach me the most, ever since we were sisters. But I remember already."

Wow, okay. That was a lot of information. Sylvia had seemed to be focused on her the last time she spoke—maybe she needed to vent a little bit too. "That seems like a lot to deal with."

"She loves me," Sylvia said flatly. "But she's annoying." Her eyes shot open. "I was getting you ice."

She watched Sylvia rise from the cot, going to a refrigerator in the corner. “I hope you work it out,” she said quietly. She understood how draining family tension could be—perhaps that’s why Sylvia had been willing to listen to her problems in the first place: it was advice she could give, but couldn’t follow herself. Still, something she had said remained tacked in her mind. “What did you mean by ‘baiting that girl?’”

Sylvia turned around, expression deadpan and aimed just off-center of Carmen’s face. “…I think you should go back to camp now, Carmen. You aren’t dying, and you’re not going to throw up.” In a swift motion, she swept across the room and shoved the ice pack in her hand. “Here’s your ice.”

With that, she was politely kicked out of the room. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Episode 7** **: Obligatory Camping Trip Part II; Or, Anything Can Happen in a Survival Situation**

Assistant Newman peered up at the tower, gaze alternating between the structure dwarfing him by comparison and the readout of the Seismographic Wave Convertor in his hand. Even surrounded by enormous pines, the metal struts rose above, like technology’s personal Eiffel tower! His eyes were bright behind the thick frames of his glasses. Who knew what this kind of technology could accomplish? _And this energy output!_

“Professor,” he spoke into his cell, “this is Newman. I’m reporting in about station B—it’s doing better than we ever could have hoped.”

\--

They made it out to day six with what seemed like relatively little progress, considering this was supposed to be Mallory’s crusade against the girl from the hospital. Narma didn’t know anything about survivalism, but she knew that it did _not_ require a display of her cohort’s verbal fencing with her aquired anime rival. And besides, their interactions seemed _…hm._

An attractive, scruffy guy was their counselor for the evening, leading them through the woods in what had to be an excessive amount of gear. “One of the most important things I wanted to go over with you today—” he said, ducking between the trees as if there were actually anything there to avoid, “—is creating a shelter.”

The group _ooh_ ed indulgently. Narma’s girls were alternately living in a state of distraction, leaving her for a rare moment to her thoughts.

Rory and Carmen were chatting quietly about something a little ways ahead, looking bothered. She would have to get the low-down later on.

Mallory, on the other hand, was so far off to the side one could hardly tell she was associated. Her scandalized exclamations occasionally broke through the masculine brouge of their guide’s lecturing.

The counsellor girl, miss blond, fit, and mysterious, led her in a wayward path through the trees, trading banter that, in a backwards way, reminded her of herself and Manual—if their goal was to nettle the hell out of each other at all moments of the day, that is.

She sighed. She needed to call him that evening. She missed his voice.

Gruff McBuff, or Ted, or whatever his name was, stopped the group in an area rife with long-armed trees. “This is the ideal scenario when you are trying to build a shelter. You want dry, sturdy, and large enough to support the weight of whatever’s keeping the rain off.”

“But it’s not raining,” said one girl, ineffectively raising her hand.

Ted said, “Anything can happen in a survival situation.” Turning his head, he called over to the pair that were galivanting through the trees. “Hey Sarah, you mind helping me with this?”

The girl peered up from where she’d been deep in the throws of sending Mallory into a tizzy, and called back amicably, “Sure,” making her way back over.

Mallory, her distraction lost, stomped over to stand at Narma’s side, arms crossed defensively.

“Get anything useful?” Narma asked lowly, quirking her brow.

Mallory pushed up her shades with one knuckle. “She’s been looking into us, but she won’t tell me more than that.”

Narma froze, gaze drifting to the front where the two counselors were now gathering example sticks into a pile. When would they ever need that information? Didn’t matter right now. “She’s looking into _us_? Since when? I thought you were looking into her?”

“The reason she was at the hospital in the first place was because she saw us on the news during the attack. She was hoping the patients or staff might know something more, but of course all the civilians were unconscious.”

Mallory burrowed further down in her jacket, which it was undoubtably too warm for outside. Narma could already see a sheen crossing the girl’s forehead, the big dummy.

Her face was…kind of dark, though. She was usually serious, but Narma hadn’t seen her so dejected before.

“Worst part is, if that’s true, I’ve been coming right to her. Volunteering information, drawing attention to myself. She was probably letting me do it on _purpose_. If she puts those things together, it would be an easy matter for her to go to the police.” She glanced up through her shades, “You know they want to arrest us now.”

“Alright,” Ted called sharply over the group, and Narma realized she should have been paying at least a little attention. “Everybody split up into groups of two. I want to see you put together your best shelter in the next thirty minutes. When you finish up, we’ll go over what you made, and point out what’s working, and what could be improved. The group with the best shelter will get an extra survival session with me, to learn some more tips.”

 _At least it’s no major loss._ She turned to Mallory, gesturing to the trees. “We’ve got to get all these sticks.”

They broke off, finding some brush nearby to start with. Once they had began to salvage, she turned her attention back to the matter at hand: how much of a threat _was_ this girl? “Do you think that she would?” She lowered her voice. “Go to the police, I mean.”

Mallory stared at her for a moment before picking up the thread she had dropped. “I don’t know.” She paused, chapped lips pursed. “…I have reason to believe that she may not want to get overly involved in the police for…other reasons. But she’s obviously got some kind of stake here. She’s gone to too much trouble. And she’s already spoken to them once.”

Narma paused, stick hanging limply from her hand. “You don’t know what she wants?”

“She won’t tell me.” Her eyes hardened. “And to be quite frank, I find it hard to believe that she just happens to show up _the day_ the first Cryptid pops up in the city. It’s too much of a coincidence.”

Narma watched her, an inking stirring in her mind that there was something, off, about her expression. She narrowed her eyes. “You seem…pretty unhappy about that.”

Mallory eyeballed her. “Well yeah. I’ve already got a criminal record. If she’s working with the police, that’s jail for me at least, or _worse_. Do you know what kind of crazy labs the government has to screw around with? Picture us strapped to a table.”

Okay, she had not considered the possibility of something like that happening before, and the gruesome image flushed the blood from her face. That was a _good damn point_. Japan might have been content to revel in the wonder of magical girls running around in the same way they loved getting whimsical with technology. But this was _America._ When America gets its hands on something it doesn’t understand, especially something _powerful_ , its first instinct is _seek and destroy_ if it can’t have it under its boot. It could start a freaking witch hunt.

Mallory’s face fell, not done. “...and if she’s not working with them, then she’s evil—involved with the Cryptids, somehow. And she’s just fucking with us.”

Narma furrowed her brow. Something was still the ping on her radar of something missing, but she wasn’t quite sure _what_. She wondered if this was how Carmen felt when she was feeling her little psychic harmony-meter imbalanced. “…what are you talking to her about, then? If she’s not telling you anything?”

Mallory almost seemed to pout, face twisting up. She groused, “She keeps asking me these stupid questions. Totally irrelevant. Like, what do I put on my pizza? What did I want to _be_ when I was a kid? What is my least favorite animal, and **_why_**?” She punctuated the ‘ _why_ ’ with contemptuous pizzazz, giving it a little jazz-hand before throwing her stick violently onto the pile.

Narma paused. She ran back over everything she knew about this girl, and what Mallory had told her, and something said _hold up_. “…it kind of sounds like homegirl is just trying to get to know you.”

Mallory threw the last of her hastily gathered sticks down. It did not at all resemble a structure at this point. “ _Of course_ she is!” She yelled, drawing the gaze of nearby groups who were probably too far away to actually understand what she was saying. “She’s a freaking _spy_!”

“Hmm.” Narma leaned back, earlier trepidation fading. “I dunno, girl. Are you, like, _sure_ this isn’t a thing?”

Mallory stared flatly. “’A thing.’ You’re going to have to be more specific.”

Narma considered her for a moment, then snorted. “I’m just saying. You seem to be a bit more bummed about the possibility of her being a bad guy than you first let on. Makes a girl wonder.”

Mallory stopped trying to prop two sticks together like a couple playing cards. “What, exactly, are you implying?”

Narma’s gaze scanned the area, where the girl’s blond braid was a beacon in the distance, then she planted her hands on her hips. “You two have got like this weird tension is all I’m saying. _I’m_ not convinced I wasn’t right at the very beginning— _do_ you like her?”

“What?” Mallory’s cool broke, and she stood upright. The sticks collapsed. “That’s absurd!”

And her _whole damn face_ was red, _wait_. “Holy shit, you _do_.”

“No, listen,” Mallory said, tone shifting sharply into panic. “You’re misinterpreting. She _infuriates_ me, not anything else. She gets some kind of kick out of nettling at me, sure, I don’t know what _her_ deal is, but that’s it. I can’t stand her.”

Wow, does the lady protest a bit too much. Narma clicked her tongue. “Hm. Sounds pretty gay to me.”

Mallory huffed, turning back to their askew pile of sticks, distractedly trying to piece them into an identifiable object. “You’re wrong. She’s working against us. I’m just trying to make sure we don’t end up on a slab.”

Narma shrugged, eyebrows not leaving her hairline. “Whatever you say, girl.”

No surprise, their shelter came in dead last at the end.

\--

Narma was delusional, and Carmen was absolutely doing her freaking job.

“She’s her sister,” Carmen murmured to her. leaning in to indicate the chartreuse-haired girl emerging in the distance from the first aid station.

The fire wasn’t lit yet, the ranks of them not yet assembled for the final campfire jamboree of the week. The campfire jamboree had proven itself to be a chance for the campers to socialize and relax at the end of the day—though calling it a jamboree was really an exaggeration, as there wasn’t even any music. Mallory preferred it that way herself.

“And she just approached you out of nowhere?”

“Yes,” Carmen whispered. White gravel shifted under her feet as she turned on the log, trying to make it less obvious they were talking about the girl in their direct line of sight. “It was really strange; she made up this excuse about having caused my bike chain to break so she could talk to me. And then she just wanted to chat.”

“Weird.” She folded her hands in front of her face, leaning on her knees. If both sisters had made appearances around the monsters, that was even more damning evidence than they’d had before. At least someone had managed to get something useful out of this trip.

She’d seen the photo in the amber alert: Gwen Kingsley and her sister, younger, and with hair that rendered them almost unrecognizable now. She hadn’t even considered the role Gwen’s sister had to play in this; that was foolish. ‘Sylvia’ was an interesting choice, though.

Carmen sat back, kneading the back of her neck. “I was trying to find out what they want, but she shut me down. She seems pretty nice, but it was just an odd moment.” She frowned.

“That’s valuable information, thank you,” Mallory gave her a nod.

Carmen straightened. “Anything on your end?”

She sighed. “She’s pretty inscrutable. I haven’t found out anything more than I told you guys the other night.”

She still hadn’t told them about the runaway thing. She didn’t know why she was hesitating; it wasn’t as though she didn’t trust them, but somehow the information felt more…private, than other things. She would tell them eventually, but for now it just didn’t seem relevant.

They knew she was looking into them, and _that_ was what was important.

The other campers wandered into the square, taking seats around the pits. The counsellors lit them one by one before going to their own outdoor tables by the dining hall to smoke. Dusk began to fall more heavily as preparations took place, deep blue soaking into the edges of the sky. Somewhat picturesque, for their last night of camp. If this whole endeavor didn’t feel like such a failure, it might have been pleasant.

The sharp sound of Rory’s laugh caught her attention, and Mallory peeked over her shoulder to see her and Narma on the approach. Their hair was wet, and they had towels over their shoulders.

“Hey girls,” Rory pipped amicably as she and Narma moved into the spaces between her and Carmen, who was sitting across the fire. “The kayaking thing was a mess. It was great!”

“I am never doing that again,” Narma blew out a puff of air, plopping her towel down as a cushion before sitting on the log. “I almost fell out like five times.”

“You wouldn’t have fallen out,” Rory stuck her tongue out, wringing out her braids.

“You can’t say it wasn’t your element,” Carmen teased with a finger raised.

“ _Aye_ ,” Rory shot her a finger gun. “I see what you did there.”

“Okay, okay, make fun of the poor drowned girl.” But Narma was smiling.

Counselor Deborah appeared soon behind them, with several other damp campers and a plate full of relevant supplies: skewers, marshmallows, chocolate bars, and graham crackers. Rory quietly cheered _yes!_

“I hope you guys have enjoyed camp,” the woman smiled fondly as the group made excited noises, taking the offerings. “We’ve enjoyed having you. In the morning, we’ll have a couple hours of swimming, and then we’ll pack up, get lunch, and head on home.”

“Thanks Deborah,” the group said. The burly woman had been a pretty good counsellor, honestly. It seemed she really did love her job; it hadn’t been an act to lure them into a false sense of security. A rare commodity.

She lit the fire, and then went back to join the rest of staff. Carmen, Narma, and Rory chatted amongst themselves about the fun they’d had, but the conversation seemed to float around Mallory at a distance, a roiling malaise caught somewhere in her chest. She had had some fun too, she guessed, but there was just too much to think about it. She had enjoyed spending time with them, at least.

The first little embers had begun flicking up into the air when someone squeezed into the empty space in the other side of the fire, a couple spaces down from Carmen.

“Hey!” Carmen piped up, and Mallory brought up her gaze to see a cloud of eye-searing green dancing with firelight. “Sylvia, hi. I haven’t seen you out much.”

“Hello,” she said lightly, eyes directed down as she took up a skewer. “Yes, I’m not a fan of the crowds, but I do like the fire. I figure if there’s going to be a time to enjoy it, this is the last chance before we leave. Plus, all kinds of insects are attracted to the light, so that’s nice.”

Mallory squinted through the heat. So, this was the mysterious sister. _This seems timely. I wonder if she saw us talking about her?_

She really looked like a different person with the color, brightened from its former blond the same way Gwen’s had been from its deep brown. If _only_ Gwen had changed her hair, they might have looked much more like sisters than they had in the alert. Of course, it would make sense that there wasn’t really a resemblance between them—according to the alert, Sylvia was adopted.

“That’s great,” Carmen nodded, though she didn’t look particularly thrilled with the insect comment. “I’m glad you decided to join us.”

“Plus, my sister’s coming out here tonight.”

_What._

“Speak of the devil,” came that _fucking amused voice_ from behind her. Mallory tensed as Gwen took a spot two spots down from her left, like that was a fine thing to do.

Mallory hunched into her knees. “You’re like a daisy,” she groaned. “You just keep popping up everywhere.”

Gwen smiled, one brow incredulously quirked. “If you’ll recall, you’re the one who followed me here.”

Mallory faltered. Embarrassingly, she was right. After a moment, she said. “I thought that was all according to plan.”

“Mm,” Gwen hummed, taking a heavy gulp from a water bottle. “Maybe.”

She was wearing some stupid-looking khaki shorts that hugged her thighs to the knee and the same cheesy tight-fitting camp logo shirt she’d been wearing all week. She’d forgone the jacket this time and—okay, this must have been the first time she’d seen her without some kind of over-wear, because the girl had some frankly impressive arms. They weren’t, like, _big_ , but Mallory would have known she was an athlete right away. Some kind of wiry cat muscle, or something. Like she was a swimmer, maybe. Fuck, this was irrelevant.

It was just another thing that, if she were being honest with herself, made her feel sort of… _inferior_ , in comparison.

She took a breath, Gwen having turned to chat with some campers she didn’t know. Okay. Maybe she could admit that.

Gwen always seemed to be a step ahead of her. She was at the hospital first, she went to the police _first_. Then she was just chilling in the city while Mallory had been working tirelessly to try and track her down. She’d created a new identity and moved cities while the authorities were actively looking for her, and she seemed so _confident_ she wouldn’t be discovered. Mallory’s false-name reservation in the Needle had been tracked by the police in one _day_. 

She was sharp and skilled and composed. In every test of capability that had arisen between them, she had beaten her. And, hell, might as well go there, she was pretty. Blond and shapely; vivid blue-green eyes. Her stupid, excellent jaw line. Mallory had never cared much about her own looks, but she knew when she was outmatched and it felt like one more brick in the wall.

And, _oh_ , if that weren’t enough, Gwen just _gave_ her information like she didn’t care what Mallory knew. Let her chase after her like some amateur stalker, joking with her, asking her what her fucking favorite _pizza_ was—because she didn’t _need_ to take her seriously. She wasn’t a threat.

God, that just made her feel like shit.

She kicked gravel into the fire, where it jostled the kindling and sent embers splitting in all directions.

On the far side of the circle, she could hear the voice of Gwen’s sister chattering to Carmen—something about her father.

“I spoke to him a little bit,” said Carmen. “It wasn’t about anything major, but I managed to…I suppose negotiate terms is the best way to put it.”

“That’s good,” said Sylvia. “You do seem to have a more energized aura, so I guessed that something like that had happened.” She watched the girl tap her fingers forcefully over her knee with a sense of detachment. “Though, it seemed to become more uneasy when my sister walked up.”

The group collectively froze. Mallory straightened slightly, trying not to draw overly much attention to it. She could hear the laughter of the surrounding groups conversing amicably around their fires.

“Sylvia,” Gwen sighed.

“Oh, shoot,” she said. “Was I not supposed to notice that?”

“Sorry!” Carmen burst forth with a fake-sounding laugh. “Honestly, I’m still a little embarrassed about the whole arrow-falling thing—I got taken out by grass; that’s pretty bad.” She indicated the bandage on her elbow, and the lie was so blatant there was simply no way she was going to believe that.

What kind of shit is that? Working hard to keep a secret identity and Gwen’s sister turns out to have some kind of new-age voodoo mindtrick? That’s got to be a foul.

But Sylvia’s unfocused gaze turned to her sister.

Mallory observed the two with rapt attention. As she watched, Gwen gave the tiniest indication of a nod, almost imperceptible.

Back to the other—Sylvia relaxed. “Yeah,” she said, and there was an additional quality to her voice that hadn’t been there before. A slight tightness. “That’s pretty embarrassing.”

Mallory narrowed her eyes.

Narma and Rory seemed to pick up on the weird direction the conversation had taken, Rory’s eyes flicking between all involved parties even with her mouth stuffed full of smore.

Gwen tilted her chin up. “It wasn’t your fault,” she shrugged, smiling. “I should be the one embarrassed; I didn’t think I was going to be in the position of having to send one of _my students_ to my sister for treatment. Thought I could trust a class of teens and up not to goof off around sharp objects. Stupid on my part, I guess.”

Carmen blinked. “Well, I mean, you can’t watch them all.”

“You win some, you loose some,” said Gwen.

The tension seemed to evaporate, but she exchanged a look with Narma. It was obvious to everyone how weird that was.

Mallory jolted when Gwen’s attention fell back to her, at the same time Sylvia asked Carmen about the others in their other two companions in the ring of fire. “Speaking of which,” Gwen said, “how have you enjoyed this little excursion?”

Her eyes flicked to the others. She really needed to hear that conversation, but of course Gwen took precedence in her attention. She leaned back down on her knees. “I would enjoy it more if you would explain your motives.”

Gwen’s eyebrows flicked up, and she chuckled. “Now, what fun would that be? Though, I have to respect you being so forward.”

Mallory paused. Okay. Okay, that, that almost sounded like a come-on. “I try,” she said flatly.

“Bleh,” said Sylvia, shifting further around the ring to sit beside her sister. “I’m taking a nap. Try not to embarrass me any further.” She laid down, hair pillowed in her Gwen’s lap. It might have been sweet, in any other circumstance.

“I’m going to tap my foot,” said Gwen.

“Better not,” Sylvia mumbled back, eyes closed.

Mallory felt uncomfortable. The scene was so…human.

Night deepened, and Gwen stayed quiet, observing them as Carmen, Rory, and Narma picked back up conversation. Mallory contributed once in a while, but wasn’t comfortable speaking openly in front of their guest.

Gwen didn’t mind at all, it seemed, and as the embers burned low she managed to insert herself back into the dialogue. “Carmen.”

Mallory watched them warily, ready to jump in if she asked anything damning and Carmen didn’t realize.

Carmen’s large eyes swiveled. “Um, hi.”

Gwen’s hand stroked Sylvia’s hair, fingers working out knots. “Sylvia told me you were pretty nice to her. Back at that park, I mean. I wanted to say thanks.”

Mallory’s head tilted without her say-so. That was…unexpected.

Carmen didn’t look like she had expected it either. “Oh! Well, no problem, I guess? Really, she kind of helped me out that day, so I’m not sure you should be thanking me. I was working through some stuff, and she gave me some pretty good advice.”

“That makes sense. She’s got kind of a sense about people. Communicating, not so great.” She looked up sharply, addressing the group. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

“No prob,” Rory said, drawn in by Gwen’s speaking again. This might be helpful; they might come at questioning her from a different angle than she had, though she was aware that the opposite could happen too. Good that she was there. Rory leaned back. “You two seem pretty close.”

Gwen peered down at the girl sleeping in her lap. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure she gets tired of it, sometimes. But I’ve always tried to have her back. I tend to think of myself as the big sister, even though we’re only a couple months apart, so I guess I feel sort of responsible for her.”

Mallory noticed Narma’s face crinkle at the apparent math inconsistencies, but she didn’t mention it. She would explain later.

She kept going. “Anyway, sometimes people don’t really get her because—actually, that’s not really my information to share. I’ll let her tell you herself if she wants, once she is awake to set things straight. Still, thanks. We’re probably going to try and settle in more once we get back in the city, so it’s good to know there are good people around.” Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Gwen turn in her direction. “So, should I be expecting another drop-in sometime soon?”

Mallory brought her gaze up to give her the scathing retort that question deserved, then was stopped dead.

Something about the fire—it refracted off the curve of Gwen’s cheek, got caught in the blue-green of her irises right at the moment she gave her a teasing smile. Something about the expression was almost… _fond_ , which made no damn sense at all. It triggered in her that patronized feeling it always had, indignation stirring, but it also…

She choked for a moment. _What the hell was that?_

It took her a second to recover; whatever she had been about to say, it was too much. Instead, she forced out, “And you had better be fucking _ready_.”

Her eyes glittered, mischievous. “Of course.”

\--

The jamboree died, and the girls retired for the final night. Mallory gathered up her towel, soap, and nightclothes and trudged out to the showers. The thoughts were still buzzing; she needed to clear her head before curfew.

The water in the showers _had_ proven to be, in fact, ice freaking cold. Charmingly, there were also no stall doors, which didn’t help her feeling of exposure.

She stiffly lathered the soap over her body, the grungy tiles reverberating with internal noise.

 _What the fuck, what the actual_ fuck _?_

She clenched her teeth, keeping the motions rapid for warmth. There was _no way_. She had rationed her way through her feelings about Gwen not 2 hours prior and admitted how pathetic she felt next to her.

That bizarre, fond expression stuck in her mind like an after image of the sun, burned into the back of her lids.

She lowered her hands, the frigid pipe-water dripping ineffectively to the floor.

A hard pill to swallow: All the ways she had conceivably slighted her—Gwen hadn’t intended to do…any of that. 

Gwen didn’t know they were going to run into each other any of the times they had. She had done most of the things she’d “done” before she had ever met Mallory. And she didn’t send her away, like any sane person would have. She had let her be there, indulged her interest. Smiled and joked with her.

…She had told her her _name_.

As far as Mallory could tell, she hadn’t told _anyone_ else since going on the run. Even out here, in the middle of the woods, she was Sarah.

It was the exact same set of circumstances, warping into two completely different narratives depending on her own perspective. What the _truth_ was.

If she acted intentionally, then she’s evil, and she’s just fucking with them.

If she _wasn’t_ …

Then, what? Mallory clenched her hands around her body, face burning through the cold. She thought back to what Narma had said. There was _no way_ all this had been some elaborate game of pulling pigtails. Absolutely no way.

Mallory raked her hands through her sopping hair, which squeaked audibly.

Dammit, she was a liar. She couldn’t hate her. The teasing grin and the tenderness of Gwen’s fingers combing through her sister’s hair provoked _doubt_ in her own hypotheses. She _wanted_ to be wrong about Gwen, for whatever reason.

There were too many factors. _Something_ was up, bar all doubts. It was only the level of Gwen’s involvement that was in question.

But what should she do?

It was the most horrible shower she had taken in years.

\--

The morning played out without any additional drama, she, Narma, Carmen and Mallory packing up to head home. Narma had her internship starting day after tomorrow, so she was eager to get back, especially once they had figured out that being here wasn’t going to help them.

The bus trudged along the roads towards Seattle later in the evening, as they had gotten a bit of a late start heading out after one of the kids had gone looking for a baseball he had lost somewhere and sent the counselors into a minor panic. The streetlights began to flick on overhead as city streets morphed-in through Rory’s window like candy ribbon, replacing copses of trees. Only about a mile out of the city now. She blew a breath against the window, fogging it with muggy air. She was kind of beat, honestly.

The back of the bus, barren on the way up, had now filled out with around half of the camp staff. Rory knew Mallory was slummed down in her seat to avoid seeing the girl she was super suspicious of and Sylvia in one if the seats, ‘bout halfway up. They had actually seemed pretty nice, in her opinion. Real sketchy to be sure, though. She had learned by now that people were not always what they made themselves out to be, especially in her particular area of expertise.

...or her...job? Was being a superhero her _job_? Dang, where was her check at?

She sighed. _I wonder what kind of trouble those gangbangers have been cooking up since I was away?_ She was going to have to get caught up.

Just as they passed the threshold to the city, the sky darkening pink above them, the driver let out a yelp. Rory braced herself against the seat as the bus jerked, stopping abruptly. She bet everyone who had been asleep was awake now; the bus began to fill with concerned and groggy voices.

" _Ohh_ , sorry everybody," the driver called out, hand over her heart. "There was a cat in the road. Can't stand to hit the poor things."

Rory was hit with a sort of sickness. She murmured, "Cat...in the road?"

She stood in her seat, lurching over the pair sitting in front of her to peer out the bus's front window.

There, standing in the road, was a small, orange, familiar tabby. Celene stared back at her, body stiff with fright, eyes holding what she recognized as a sense of urgency.

A shock barreled through Rory's body, carrying with it a sense of dread. Before she had decided to do it, she opened her mouth and screamed, "GET OFF THE BUS!"

The passengers panicked in the seconds after they realized she was serious. She heard the emergency exit snap open and its little sirens went off. Mallory had jumped up first when she’d yelled, followed by Narma and Carmen, both sleep-hazy, movements jerky with adrenaline. They busted through the front sliding door, and she yelled “GET AWAY!” to the passengers without any guidance as to where they should be heading away from. Other civilians climbed out behind them, confused but not without fear.

“ _Aurora!”_ Celene screamed, coming from around the bus, _“the creature’s appeared back in town—"_

Rory almost missed it happen. One second, her eyes flicked up to scan the area, and she spied it: the spiked body of Mallory’s “Urchin” coming around the corner with a sinister slowness, as if it were turning to stone.

Then it pivoted towards the bus. From what had to be 400 feet away, the creature sped forward, crossing the distance with horrifying speed before she’d had time to confirm it was moving.

Like a living wrecking ball, it rammed the front-right corner of the bus—screams rung out. The bus spun away, screeching through the road making full circles before the momentum sent it crashing onto its side. Rory screamed, diving out of the way as the crumpled machine spit glass shards in all directions. She hissed, the skin scraped all along her forearms, and she came up on her knee. “Guys?” she yelled out.

“We’re okay,” Narma called from behind her, and she turned to see her half-way on the ground, but intact. Carmen was braced against Mallory, where they had fallen in the scramble, but they were the most upright of any of them.

Something pinged her awareness along with the intense pain knotting of her stomach, and she bolted up to stagger, eyes darting around like someone crazed. “ _Celene?”_ Where was she? She was just here—she eyed the dark scrap that gouged through the road, terrified—

“I’m here!” Her chest exploded with relief as little cat pattered from behind a lamppost, where she had apparently taken cover. Without delay, she scooped up their guide into her arms and squeezed her tight, smooching the top of her fuzzy head. “Oof!”

“Scared the beejezus out of me!” She cried, cuddling her a second longer before replacing her delicately back on the pavement.

“Oh, well,” Celene fussed, flustered, “I do apologize, then.”

“No roadkill today, then, good.” Narma sighed.

“Not funny,” Carmen scolded. Her eyes moved back to the sideways bus with pin-point concentration—a rare expression on her outside of uniform. “This is really bad. Those people could be seriously hurt.”

“Not to mention that thing’s looking for a snack.” Mallory pointed to the Urchin, reaching down into the broken windows to drag people out.

“Then we need to make sure they wake up tomorrow. Once we transform— _oh shit_.”

Narma was gazing back to a nearby cluster of buildings. The crash must have distracted them from the street lamps, dousing and lighting at epileptic intervals: the familiar buzzing noise was getting louder from the wrong direction. From between two buildings Spindly Legs crawled out, its legs clinging by window’s ledges. It screeched when it saw them, and began to scuttle over.

Rory’s gaze shot back and forth between them, mouth gaping. _Two_ of them? _I thought that thing was dead!_ They couldn’t take them both at once!

The group of them scrambled together, standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a crescent formation with Celene at their feet. “We can’t let Spindly get too close to the bus,” Rory called out. “If it touches the metal siding, those people are toast!”

“And the Urchin needs distracting,” said Mallory, clenching her fists.

“Let’s go!”

They’d had to be creative, keeping the scepters on them at all times at camp. Now, she was glad they’d been paranoid. 

“Boreas Star Power, Make-up!”

Simultaneously, the others called out: “Egeria Star Power—“ “Concordia Star Power—"

“Decima Star Power—”

_“—Make-up!”_

Light flashed in a myriad of monochrome tones, and their formation broke as the light faded. “Egeria, Decima. You think Spindly might be dumb enough to fall for the same thing twice?”

“Only one way to find out,” Decima said before they took off in its direction.

Concordia turned in her direction.

“You’re with me,” Boreas said. “We have to take this thing out.”

“Got it.”

The two of them and Celene ran towards the bus.

\--

Spindly Legs didn’t exactly look happy to see them. It opened its insectoid mouth and chittered angrily. Immediately, waves of energy-absorption began pouring off of it. Mallory barely managed to fight her momentum quickly enough to change direction. “Whoa. Okay, don’t want that.”

 _Woof,_ and these guys had gotten _bigger_. Legs stood at almost the height of the building behind it, and the Urchin was the size of half the bus. Not a great sign.

“Your chains,” Narma called to her as they took position on either side of Legs. “They conduct electricity?”

“Didn’t shock me before.”

“Good.”

Mallory glanced back to the bus—Rory and Carmen were attacking the Urchin, but if there was ever a time for the chain, it was now. “Head’s up,” she called across the way, before bringing her middle and index together _. “Destiny Chain!”_

She directed the attack across the area in a sideways V—out from herself to the Urchin, then cutting back to nail the unsuspecting Legs in the chest. It hissed as the attack vanished, magic in place. “Okay,” she said. “Now we can kill it.”

"Typhoon Strikedown!" Narma shot out the geysers immediately, and the creature leapt back, wincing. She said, "I’ve gotten this guy to shock himself before," Narma said.

"Seems he didn't enjoy it," Mallory watched Legs scramble back from the puddle, hissing venomously as electricity bounced off its body. "We need to keep working him back."

Leg's energy field broke off, and it shot one sharp limb out to slam into the ground where Narma had been standing. It didn’t pause, reaching out with its other limb it grabbed the lamp post nearby and—

_Zzzzap._

Mallory yelped as a bolt of electricity flared from the socket, where the bulb busted into tiny shards. _What the hell? I thought it couldn't do that?_ If it had enough juice to be able to throw that back out, it must have gotten stronger since the last time she and Carmen had kicked its ass. She gritted her teeth, electricity in the air tingling along her fingertips.

 _Seems like keeping its attention isn’t going to be a problem,_ she thought grimly, just as its leg came out and collided with her stomach.

There was a moment of shock as the air was knocked out of her, then she landed backwards through the glass of an old shop window.

For a couple of seconds, a terror seized her as her body recalled the sensation of falling, thrown through the pane of the Needle’s highest window. Then she landed, back jackknifing against a checkout counter inside. Spots danced in her vision for several seconds letting all her attention linger on the pounding ache in her lower back. _Ugh, that’s going to bruise like a bitch._

She shook glass out of her hair, the spots clearing. It took a second for her awareness of surroundings to kick in, and she flinched when she realized—well, she’d thought she was alone. Hiding behind the counter was a family of three: a little boy with big, dark eyes, his scrawny, scruffy-faced father, and his round, weathered-looking mother. _They must be squatting._ She regreted the broken window.

The kid was shivering, hands over his head. Outside, Mallory could hear the ruckus of battle with Narma still facing down ole’ Spindly with the Legs That Won’t Quit. “No worries, kid,” she said to the child staring up at her, hiding from the monsters. “We’re going to get them out of here, no doubt.”

Back hating her with a vehemence, she exited back through the front door like a goddam rational human being.

Narma had to have thrown a Typhoon down upon that thing, because it jittered and jolted with electricity, but it still dragged itself around with glitching movements.

“Hey, you’re alive,” she said.

“Yep, try harder, death. Looks like we just need to wrap this baby up.”

“I wouldn’t say ‘just.’ He’s reeeeal feisty today,” Narma bolted for the other side of the street to avoid the creature coming down on her from above.

Mallory stepped back, keeping her eye on the cryptid’s erratic movements. “Fair enough.” Her eyes scanned the rest of the street—this area was huge, more lanes coming and going from the city, so the lamppost trick from last time wasn’t going to work. She didn’t have her magnets, either. Best she could hope for was to get this thing to disappear; make the cost of staying higher than the reward…

Her eyes focused on the wrecked streetlight. She eyed the empty socket.

It was risky. She had no concept of what it’s limits might be, especially in its new and improved form. But what would happen if it absorbed _too_ much power? She pursed her lips. “We need to get it back over to the post.”

Narma’s eyes flashed as she glanced back, Legs clinging menacingly over head from the side of a building. “Are you crazy? We’ll get electrocuted!”

Mallory didn’t waiver. “Maybe,” she said. “This is the only way to trap it I can think of.”

Narma frowned, dodging around a fire hydrant as it scuttled after her. “You’d better know what you’re doing.”

“That’s always the hope.”

Briefly, she gazed back to the bus. She could see Carmen and Rory running manically to stay on top of the walking mace they were meant to be defeating. The bus was crumpled like a soda can—she frowned. Gwen and her sister had been on that bus.

…she hoped they made it out in time. No time to worry about it now.

“Hey sucker,” she called out, catching Spindly Leg’s attention. “Want to play tag?” She held her arms over her head.

It thrust forward, limbs like electrified lances.

Go time. She jumped back—this thing had gotten fast, but she was smarter. Hopefully. “That all you got?”

It struck out rapidly. The wall behind her became riddled with holes, the air peppered with dust.

Behind, Narma called out again, _“Typhoon strikedown,”_ renewing the moisture that had evaporated off of the beast. She darted around to the same side Mallory was on, backing up. “That attack isn’t going to catch it off guard every time.”

“Doesn’t need to,” and they backed up together. The creature shook off the water, glitching like an old TV. “How long do you think you can hold it off?”

“Not long,” Narma barked impatiently.

“Long enough for me to get to the roof? There’s a fire escape.”

Narma frowned, “Girl, you better have an actual plan here.”

“I do,” she nodded firmly. They broke apart, leaping to either side as the cryptid advanced, recovering from its disorientation.

Narma clenched her fists. “Go fast.”

Without delay, Mallory shot into the alley behind, where the fire escape led up to the roof behind the broken light pole. Finding the ledge, she peered down to the road below.

Narma was backing up towards the light pole, leading it close. That put her directly in the line of fire—Mallory jolted, realizing that she could already see the buzz of electricity gathering at the bulb. It was now or never.

_Hope this works._

“On the count of three,” Mallory called, “get the heck out of the way.”

“Count _fast_ ,” Narma winced against the broken light pole, electricity in dangerous proximity.

“Okay,” she said, because she could be accommodating. “One, two _, three_ —”

The moment his way was clear and he spied her from above, Spindly Legs leapt. If it grabbed her, she was toast, but if she grabbed it—

She shot her arms out, fighting the momentum that wanted to bring her over _. “Destiny Chain!”_

The metaphysical chain shot out from her, and obeyed her will, wrapping around the creature.

It froze. One spindly arm stretched out towards her, suspended mid-air. The creature almost looked confused, not-quite-there-eyes peering down to see what it had snagged on, presumably.

She took a breath. This could go really wrong. She didn’t especially want to be Kentucky Fried, but you know. Risks one takes for the greater good.

Stepping back, she began to _pull_. Her back screamed profanities, but…it was moving.

The creature, heavy in a strange way, was lifted upward. It was moved only inch by agonizing inch. The space was dead silent with tension, all three beings frozen in a moment of deadly possibility.

Time seemed to slow as Mallory dragged its not-outstretched other limb up, so slowly, towards the blown-open face of the lamp post’s empty socket—

\--

_Meanwhile…_

The good news was that, as soon as they had transformed, the Urchin had noticed them. Maybe it was because she was in the water that it had not noticed Narma when she first transformed in front of it the other day, but the moment it spotted Rory and herself it completely forgot about the bus.

That was also the bad news.

It was quicker on land by a long shot. One second, it was holding a passenger above the bus, form limp in its strange hand, and then it had dropped that person and was zipping towards them, spikes extended viciously.

“Yeesh!” Boreas/Rory yelped from a little ways away. “Don’t get stabbed! _Dire Stellar Gust_!”

“Yes, please don’t!” Celene shouted, tail flicking anxiously as she tried to figure out where to move next. She really should probably have gotten out of there, but Rory had mentioned to Carmen before how much Celene wished she could help during these battles. Plus, she had really saved them a few moments ago. If she hadn’t shown up to warn them, they never would have gotten off in time and they would have been crushed when the monster rammed the bus.

The wind attack collided with the creature, the shrapnel digging into its solid white body. It stood perfectly still, as though absorbing the damage.

“We’re going to need something stronger than this,” Carmen held her fingers up, calling on a _Bellicoso._ The musical attack smashed over the creature like a flurry of tiny explosives, but unlike the other, it didn’t slow it down. Gasping, she dropped to the ground as it rushed towards her, its momentum too much to stop and it toppled over her. It fell forward, its spikes wedging into the cement.

“A combo?” Rory said from behind her, and Carmen quickly got up before it dislodged itself and decided to stomp her.

“At least.”

The creature un-stuck itself, practically vibrating in rage. For a creature without eyes, it only took a moment to find them and dart in their direction. She moved at the last second, and again, it took several feet before the creature was able to stop.

She looked to the building behind her _. I wonder…_

It was large, but it was stupid. And it had to touch them to use its absorption, right? “Hey,” she called over to Rory. “Help me draw it back towards the buildings.”

“Sure thing.” She paused. “Hey, where did Celene go?”

Carmen’s brow furrowed, and she scanned the area—back where they had come from, she could see Celene heading…back into the bus? Maybe she _had_ decided to find a cover, unless she had suddenly developed some kind of powers herself, but that seemed unlikely. That was probably the safest place right now, honestly. The creature didn’t care about the people anymore; it wanted _them._

…which was weird, actually? That didn’t seem to match its previous patterns. Did it? She tried to think back, then shook herself out of it. Not the time.

They ran back towards the buildings, then stopped. “Okay,” Rory/ Sailor Boreas said. “Now what?”

Carmen narrowed her eyes on the incoming creature. “Now, don’t move.”

Rory stiffened. “Um. I don’t know how I feel about this plan, girl.”

She rolled her eyes humorously. “Don’t move _until_ I give the signal.”

“Well, that makes more sense.”

The creature shot towards them in bursts. It seemed it did tire, if it wasn’t able to maintain the same speed at all times. Regardless, when it finally locked on, Carmen shouted “Now!” And dove to the side, Rory doing the same in the other direction. As predicted, the creature didn’t stop, colliding with the building in an explosion of brick.

They backed up as it broke free and shook all over—probably the equivalent of shaking its head to clear disorientation, as it’s body and head were basically one solid sphere. It staggered a bit as it turned to find them.

“Hoping it’ll knock itself out?”

“That’s the plan,” said Carmen.

“Better than anything I got.”

They repeated the process, and Carmen was thankful that it didn’t catch on that they were doing it intentionally. Eventually, though, it seemed to realize it wasn’t getting anywhere, and it maneuvered them back away from the buildings towards the bus with short, spike-threatening bursts. Every once in a while, it jolted, as if shocked. It must have been coming through Mallory’s chain connection, albeit muted.

“Okay, well, I think we gave it a concussion.” Rory nodded consideringly before crying out as the beast attempted to barrel over her. “Man, this thing just doesn’t stop!”

“You up for that combo?” Carmen held her hands up defensively as they split the space between them, the creature indecisive about which one of them to go after. “We can’t let it touch us.”

“Then we’ll have to be fast.”

Reaching into the core of herself where she knew the star soul was blazing, she waited for the words to rise that would give her what she needed. Feeling the connection with Boreas harmonize, they appeared:

_“Disarming Orcestral Derecho!”_

The attack was a mouthful, and as they spoke it simultaneously a wall of wind and cacophonous sound rose up before them, spanning the area. It crashed into the Urchin in waves, golden shrapnel tearing through its form as it bellowed only to disappear as soon as it hit. _This might be a good one for spread-out enemies—_

But when it was over, the creature was still standing. Her jaw dropped.

“ _Man!”_ Rory shouted, voice strained. “It’s not dead yet?!”

There was a loud pop and Carmen shielded her eyes, a suddenly light flashing violently from the other side of the intersection. Looking over, the light dimmed enough that she could see “Spindly Legs” lit up like the forth of July, Mallory keeping a grip on it from the roof top. Her first thought was, _that is so stupid!_ Was she just hoping she wouldn’t get shocked?! Then Narma’s voice called out to her. “Ca-Condordia! Pacify them!”

 _Oh! That might work!_ Raising her hands, she called the attack: _“Mesmeric Pacification!”_ She held her breath.

The creatures limpened, but did not disappear. They jittered with movements that made her feel like they were going to stand back up at any moment. She and the others looked at each other, horrified—they had tried just about everything, their attacks weren’t cutting it, how strong _were_ these things?

_“Celestial Roulette!”_

Carmen started, thrown out of concentration by what was obviously the call of an attack. But they were all looking at each other?

About that time, a series of clicks sounded ending with a flaring noise, and then something shot from above into the body of the Urchin.

It withered and twisted, before making a motion like sinking into the ground. Across the way, Spindly Legs blinked into itself and out of existence, banished by the magic of the Destiny Chain.

They stood froze, unsure what had just happened. Mallory was peering above her, looking lost even from so far away. Recalling the directionality of the attack, Carmen spun around, peering to the top of the bus.

There sat Sylvia, leg bloodied and hanging over the side of the bus but wearing a _very familiar uniform_. Her sister stood above her, one arm extended before herself and the other cupped in the air at her side, similarly clothed. Celene stood beside them, tail flicking nervously.

Carmen gaped— _so that’s the truth?!_

Sylvia’s sister—Gwen?—took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said, flexing her gloved hand. “I’m going to need someone to explain what’s happening right now.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Episode 8: Pier Expectations; Or, A Series of Arrivals to a New Paradigm**

They sat around the table at Storybrook, letting everything sink in. Narma was getting drinks from her boyfriend, but had only just gotten up as everyone tried to come to terms with what the heck had just happened the previous night.

“So,” said Gwen from the other side of the table. The girl sat with her hands twined over the table top, which was kind of amazing because there were six chairs jammed in about the tiny surface and there really wasn’t the elbow room. “Sailor Soldiers.”

Rory nodded slowly. “Right.” She brought her hand down to their secret seventh party member, scratching Celene behind the ear. The cat had been reluctant to explain anything the previous night, insisting that Rory get some rest after the battle and then having to explain to her mother why she was late getting home.

Gwen peered over to her sister, who was rubbing her bandaged leg. “And we have some kind of space powers, from another galaxy.”

“Trappist-1,” Celene advised quietly. “It’s a far-off star system. The celestial bodies your powers hail from are designated by this planet’s people as Trappist-1 f and g, but their true names are Fortuna and Gyges.”

Narma had returned, and was passing out drinks like it was her solemn duty. She took the bench beside Rory, and Rory felt oddly guarded by her presence.

Sylvia was leaning way far back in the booth; Rory got the feeling she didn’t like the close quarters. “Hm. Does that make us aliens, or something?”

“Reincarnated,” Narma jumped in, voice still a little smug. “Used to be some kind of space princesses or something, but we’re all human now. At least in body.”

Sylvia gasped, and said in monotone. _“I’m a princess?”_

Gwen quirked a brow at her incredulously. “’Space super hero’ doesn’t faze you, but ‘princess’ is a shock?”

“Shut up,” Sylvia said mildly.

Gwen shrugged, her attention shifting back to the group. “I would say I don’t believe you, but I saw it. Fills in a lot of blanks, got to tell you.”

Rory peered across the table. Mallory hadn’t said anything, watching the other two with visible discomfort. She’d been quiet ever sense the previous evening, when they’d banished the Cryptids, called an ambulance, and then decided this would be better explained once they’d had time to recover. She had no idea what the girl was feeling; she’d been so sure they were working against them. She was usually so outspoken.

Carmen, on her other side, folded her hands on the table. “How did you end up investigating the news reports? That seems like a pretty big coincidence.”

The two sisters looked at each other.

Gwen said, “What do you think?”

“It’s not the craziest thing we’ve heard today,” said Sylvia.

Rory eyed the Narma with mutual apprehension.

Gwen turned back to them. She straightened the shoulders of her quilted tan jacket. She said, “When we were about seven years old—well, let me back up. My parents had just adopted Sylvia, and it was our first family road trip. They’d stepped out to check us out of this little motel we were staying at in New Mexico, and it was just me and Sylv alone for a few minutes.” Her voice held the timber of someone who was telling an old ghost story—they’d really missed an opportunity there, having sat around a fire only two nights prior. She leaned in closer to the table. “While we were waiting for them to come back, the TV came on. All by itself. For a second, we though one of us must have sat on the remote, or something. _‘Did you do it?’ ‘No, did you?’_ …and then we realized it was us on the screen.”

Beside her, Carmen’s eyes narrowed. “It…couldn’t have been a reflection, could it?”

“Oh, no,” Sylvia chuckled. “No no no. You see, it was us on the screen, but the thing was we were like _ten years older_.”

In her periphery, Mallory’s hands thumped down on the table _. “Excuse me?”_

Gwen waggled her eyebrows at her, grinning. “Yeah, I thought you would like that.” Her blue-green gaze flipped back to Rory. “While we were trying to figure out what the hell we were seeing, the images of us on the screen started _talking._ All they said was _, ‘Sylvia and Gwen, pay attention. In ten years, go find the superheroes of Seattle.’_ That’s it. And then it cut off.”

The table was totally silent, stunned.

Eventually, Gwen shrugged. “Our parents didn’t believe us. We couldn’t prove it, and from that day we never had an explanation for what had happened. But we never forgot.” She held up a finger. “And then a couple weeks ago, right around the 10-year mark, we see this report on TV of some kind of vigilantes running around…”

_“Oh my gosh,”_ Carmen breathed.

“That’s nuts,” said Narma. She…didn’t look entirely like she believed them.

Mallory’s brows were furrowed, and Rory could practically see the gears turning in her head. “Hold on. You said you thought you looked ten years older.”

Rory nodded, “Yeah, that’s kind of specific.” Wait. “Duh, wait a minute, you said its been ten years! That means you sent the message—”

“—from now, yeah.” Gwen nodded slowly. “And there’s the million dollar question for you: I’m about to send a message 10 years back to my past self, to an old TV in a crappy motel room in New Mexico. Now, how the hell did I do that?”

They all looked around at each other, seeing if any of the others had any ideas. Eventually, Celene peeped up from under the table. “Time travel…” she murmured the words with a sort of awe. “…I’m only aware of a few Sailor artifacts that hold that kind of power, and only in the hands of their wielders.”

Artifact? Celene had never mentioned anything like that, but the word called to mind the box sitting on her bed end at home. Rory bit her lip. “That couldn’t be whatever’s in the Cosmos Treasure Box, could it?

Narma raised her brows at her, and they all turned to at Celene.

The cat’s fur bristled at the attention. “…all of the time-based artifacts I can think of are much larger than such a box. I don’t believe so.”

Sylvia brought a finger to her chin. Her other hand rubbed over the corner of the tablecloth aggressively, the same circular motion. “Hm. But we did see you pull some magic wands out of your forehead. Could it work like that?” Her question seemed surprisingly earnest.

Oh, that was true, wasn’t it? Her little forehead pocket dimension. Why couldn’t it work like that?

Celene placed a paw to her chin; it almost looked like a normal cat thing; just washing her paws or something. “I suppose…”

The six of them agreed to keep it under wraps. For now, she needed to go home and try to get that box open.

\--

The next morning was full of birds and coffee smell. Narma’s waking thoughts proceeded as thus: Mm, someone made coffee. Then, it’s summer, I don’t have to be up for school. Finally, her eyes slid open. The internship starts today.

She’d never been a morning person, but she flew out of bed, heading for the shower without being fully conscious as though a very productive ghost had possessed her body. She showered half-awake, then pulled on her most fashionable kurti before speeding out into the main room, a living room/kitchen combo.

Her father and mother were in there, reading the paper. A pan of upma sat on the counter, which she gravitated towards immediately. “Good morning, everyone.”

Her father was distracted—he always got absorbed in the paper, but her murmured back a morning. Her mother peered back to her from the kitchen table. “I made breakfast for your big day.”

“Thank you.” She hugged her mother round the shoulders. They didn’t always get along, but they were considerate of one another’s stresses and took extra steps to show support. “I’ll have to eat fast; I have to catch my bus.”

“Not good for you,” her father tisked, and she knew he had already been up for a couple hours, going through his own routine. “You should get up earlier. Have breakfast with your parents.”

“I am,” she said with a pout, gathering a bowl and sitting at the table, mouthing through a short prayer.

“When are you going to be home?” Her mother asked, continuing on her meal as the prayer was finished.

Narma paused, then said, “Oh, probably around eight.”

“Eight?” Her mother recoiled, wrinkling her nose. “Why, this place is stealing my daughter. That seems very late.”

“Well,” Narma fiddled with her fork for a second. “I actually have a date after my first day is done.”

“A date?” Her father lowered the newspaper. “Who is this, then? You haven’t mentioned anyone to me.”

_And you wonder why_. She resisted rolling her eyes. “He’s just some guy I met at the café. It’s no big deal.”

Okay, it actually felt like a big deal, but the less serious she made this out to be the more likely they were actually going to let it happen without a fuss. She and Manuel had hung out before; there was just a monster attack the last time. This was just going to be them? So she was siked, but also, yikes.

Her mother looked horrified. “A new boy? So soon after the last one…I hope he’s a better man than the last you were involved with!” She looked about ready to fret.

Narma wasn’t sure what they were talking about for a second, and then she had remembered—the strangulation bruises from her first fight as a soldier. She’d told them it had been a boy she’d met. Oh, no wonder they looked about ready to pop. “No, no, he’s a very sweet boy. You would like him. Maybe you can meet him sometime.”

“He’d better shape up if he’s coming into this house, I won’t have some brute dating my girl.” her father huffed, then gave her the stink eye over his paper. “What’s his name?”

Narma winced. “…Manuel?”

He said _tch._ “We need to find you a nice Hindi boy, that’s all there is to say about it.”

Oh, _Krishna,_ not this again. Time to go. She quickly cleaned up her now empty bowl, giving her mother a kiss on the cheek, and then her father to spite him. “I’ll be safe, have a blessed day.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” her father warned.

She let out a sigh of relief the moment she was out the door.

She had an internship (!) to get to.

Upon entering the building, Narma was blindsided by just how many people were clustered around the stairs. There had to be twenty, at least. Of course, with this sort of limited opportunity, a lot of people _would_ have gone for it. The sight sparked a twinge of doubt. _How much individual instruction am I actually going to get here?_

As she approached the group, she recognized one of the girls standing there as the girl who was interviewed before her: bright, curly red hair. “Hey, you made it.”

The girl blinked, realizing she was being addressed. She turned to stare at Narma in utter confusion (and something that twisted her nose—maybe disgust,) before recognition flashed in her eyes. “Oh, it’s you. Yeah, I got the job. Thanks for noticing.” She rolled back her shoulders, shaking out her ponytail before firmly facing the front of the group again.

Narma raised an eyebrow, before leaning up, reading the sticker nametag the girl’s chest was emblazoned with. It had **Sarah** written in the same measured font Narma had received her own in, but it was crossed out with a dark black line. Above it, in scratchy, cramped writing, was **_Antoni!,_** written with an exclamation point.

“It’s…Antoni?” Narma asked.

Antoni made an affronted sound. “Oh, yeah, that.” She waved her hands. “I keep telling these people I go by Antoni and they keep putting down the wrong thing, it’s so annoying. I swear, if they can’t keep that one little thing straight, are they even going to be worth my time to be here? _Obviously_ not detail oriented.”

Narma leaned back. _Wow, what a brat. I’m sure there are dozens of folks who would love to take your place, princess._

Ahead, Narma saw the elevator open up and someone in a sharp beige suit stroll out, coming towards the group. “Welcome, all of you! My name is Valerie Cunningham; I’m the internship program director. How are you all this morning?”

There was a chorus of positive voices, and Narma contributed herself. Beside her, Antoni just crossed her arms under her chest.

Valerie said, “I’m the one you are mostly going to be reporting to throughout this little endeavor, and I’m going to make sure you get a taste of several different specialties here at the institute. I’m excited to work with you all! How about we take a little tour, hm?”

Valerie first led them to the work room, which was the room with all the sewing machines she’d passed through before. “This is where the students work on their projects, as well as our professional seamstresses, who work commissions for our more esteemed clients.”

_Wow, so they share the same place as the students?_ It must have been really relaxed.

She showed them the cafeteria and an area with stages called the “showing” space, used for photo shoots and for shows of student work. Along the hall, mannequins displayed the work of famous designers who had also attended the school.

They saw the marketing sector, and then a little block of offices, where they stopped.

“This is going to be the main focus of the internship. You’ll work with our commissioned seamstresses to log and complete orders with the upmost care. On rotation, you will get to work with our marketing and budget departments to get experience with creating pitches, and advancing your own brand. I know you all received your special projects due at the end of the internship based on your areas of interest—I look forward to seeing what you come up with.”

Finally, she led them down the hall to a large alcove leading to a set of smaller rooms.

“You all also may be aware that we have a residential program for designers with complex, long-terms projects. Those rotate out every three years. Currently, we have had the privilege of partnering up with some aeronautics engineers from Dover at Skylab as they work on developing the next generation of aerospace textiles.”

She pushed open a set of double doors.

“Hello, everyone! Just bringing the intern group by to say hello.”

“Hi,” said a group of people in lab coats, gathered around countertops along the walls. The counters were covered in microscopes and test tubes. Whoa, this was way sciencier than she had been expecting. There were scraps of fabric shoved under the lens.

“They’re working to create advanced, durable textiles for NASA to utilize on upcoming missions. She leaned through a door at the back to shout through. “Can you guys come out for a minute? I want to introduce the summer group.”

_Wow, they’re developing that kind of technology in a place like this?_ Narma raised her eyebrows. _Impressive. I would have thought the most advanced pieces of tech here would have been their sewing machines. Cool ass sewing machines, but still._

A trio of people in nicer lab coats moved through the door: A woman with long, dark hair, a man with large eyebrows and furrows of wrinkles, and another woman glued to her clipboard, tucking strawberry-blond hair behind her ear. “Hey everyone! Good to meet you,” said the dark-haired woman. “I’m Professor Sasha Wu, these are my colleagues, Professors Hester (she indicated the man) and Mooringer (and the other woman.)”

Professor Hester raised his impressive brows at them. “Stop by some time, and we’ll show you what we’re working on!”

They shook hands with the team before heading out again. Valarie spoke back to them, “We’re working on all kinds new developments in fashion here, both practical and technical. I’m excited for you guys to see everything!”

Beside her, Antoni snorted. That was fine. She could scoff all she liked. Narma was going to take advantage of being here whilst she could.

At the end of the tour, Valerie brought them all to stand in the center of the floor again. “Well, do we think we got our bearings a little bit?” Some murmured affirmations. “I know you guys got the program manual already, but this is just some specific information about the building for you. It also has you listed out by your groups, so hopefully some of you will get to know each other a little better throughout this experience. Learn and grow!”

She passed out the papers, and Narma took one, examining her group when her eyes found the listing. Her stomach dropped.

The majority of them were there with design aspirations, it seemed.

Including Antoni. Her name sat like a hex beneath Narma’s.

“Alright! Now, we just need to take you guys to your areas, and you can get started in your areas!” Valerie clapped, the remaining papers fanning in her palm. “Isn’t this exciting?”

Narma took a deep breath. This was going to be a long summer.

\--

Carmen had been making an effort to be more assertive with her father as of late, and that worked in starts and stops. But it didn’t mean she was entirely out of the woods.

No school meant her father saw no problem with making her the company’s errand girl, and the knowledge of how much responsibility was on his shoulders made her feel too guilty to say no. So there she was again making deliveries on a Wednesday morning, bike newly repaired, still half-asleep.

At least, in this case, it was a pick-up and go. She didn’t have to lug the package the entire way.

She slowed, dismounting her bike next to the flower shop and clicking the little lock to tether it to the pole. She wasn’t totally sure how she was going to do it…she sighed. She would probably end up juggling both vase and bike the rest of the way, huh? She was supposed to be meeting up with Alyssa that evening to catch up. The skating ring had just opened up again a couple weeks ago, and they’d been getting a ton of business so she’d been too busy to hang out outside of work. It was probably for the better that she hadn’t been so out and about lately; Carmen wouldn’t want her to get involved in this mess again.

Hopefully, this wouldn’t take too long.

She entered the shop, fishing into her pocket for her wallet. Might as well get this done as quickly as possible.

She jumped when she looked up to see a familiar face staring back at her. “Oh!” She yelped, placing her palm over her chest. “Geez, this just keeps happening, doesn’t it?”

Sylvia peered back to her from her place at a little worktable off to the side. “Carmen,” she acknowledged. She was seated, an arrangement sitting in front of her half-finished, shears in her hand. “Did Gwen ask you to come check on me?”

“No!” Carmen brought her hand down. “That’s what I mean! I had no idea you worked here. I’m doing an errand for my father.”

Sylvia laid her head sideways on the tabletop. It was littered with little clippings of flower stems, which were made nigh invisible by the color of her hair. “Huh.” She didn’t look like she totally believed her.

She glanced down, to where Sylvia’s leg was still wrapped. Apparently, she’d taken a nasty fall while the bus was being thrown helter-skelter, and she could see a faint pink tinge to the bandage. “How’s your leg?”

“Fine, thank you,” Sylvia said lightly. “We thought it might have been fractured, but this morning, the gash was all that was left. I’m still trying not to walk on it.”

Carmen nodded slowly. “That’s good. We do seem to have some sort of advanced healing…I’m not sure how that works, as for all intents and purposes our bodies are supposed to be entirely human.”

“Good thing,” Sylvia closed her eyes briefly, face still smooshed to the tabletop. “I’m not sure how much more of Gwen’s hovering I could have taken. One day was enough.”

Carmen raised her eyebrow. She had always wondered what it might be like to have a sibling, but it kind of seemed like it might be tougher than she had expected. “She does seem…pretty protective.” That lined up with what Sylvia had told her before. It seemed like she’d been being pretty honest, given that they were nearly strangers.

_“Yes,”_ Sylvia said overly loudly, raising her head up only to thump it back down on the table. “She’s always like that.”

Carmen scratched her chin, laying the order card down on the counter so she wouldn’t misplace it while they were talking (her mind always envisioning such possibilities.) “She said something kind of weird, back at camp.” She hesitated to ask, but Gwen did basically tell her to, so? “She thanked me for being nice? Said something about people not really getting you sometimes?”

Sylvia sat up, one hand rubbing insistently at the woodgrain on the edge of the table. “Oh, _that?_ Ugh, it’s not like it’s some big secret,” she said. “I’m autistic. People think that means I need coddling, sometimes. Or they don’t know how to talk to me, or don’t want to. Gwen knows that gets on my nerves, so she grills people sometimes. Doesn’t stop her from trying to coddle me herself.”

Carmen took a second to process that—she’d thought there was something different about the way Sylvia interacted with her, though she’d had no idea what. She really didn’t know that much _about_ autism, but if Sylvia didn’t want her to make a big deal about it, then she wouldn’t. _Hm._ “Is that why you thought Gwen might have sent me?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time she’d done something similar.” Her gaze rose. It passed over the misty green walls of the flower shop, the rows of arrangements and freshly completed orders in cool cases. There was nothing especially expensive looking about the shop, the way her father usually preferred. It could have been any shop. “It is weird. You, just happening to come here. It seems like the universe is set to keep us all revolving around one another. Magnetizing our auras. Seeing as we’re teammates, I mean.”

“Yeah, it does.” Carmen leaned back against the counter, urgency to get her chore done waning. She hadn’t really gotten to talk to Sylvia yesterday when they met up at Storybrook—it was mostly their two groups sharing intel. “It’s too much of a coincidence otherwise. Rory and Narma were best friends for years before the first attacks, and I go to the same school. Not to mention how Mallory just found us one day. I…actually, I guess that kind of explains why she was so determined to go after your sister? Maybe she just knew, subconsciously.”

Sylvia’s pale blue gaze flicked up to her for a second. “Yeah, that is one reason.” Her monotone was especially dry. “Didn’t help that Gwen was having so much fun egging her on.”

That was interesting. Carmen wasn’t one for gossip, but that might have been a little different when the gossip concerned an immediate friend. “Hm. So she was doing it on purpose?”

“She says that wasn’t what she was trying to do,” Sylvia said, “but you saw them. Your friend is a mystery, but I know what Gwen’s expressions mean. It was very suspicious.”

Carmen breathed through her nose, laughing softly. “I thought maybe I was imagining it.”

“I hope something comes of it,” Sylvia said bluntly. “Maybe, if she’s distracted, she won’t spend so much time on my case.”

Oh. _Well then._

“Plus.” The chartreuse-haired girl peered down to her hands for a moment, rubbing her thumbs and forefingers together. “She deserves to find something that makes her happy. She spends all her time trying to make me happy. She should spend some of her energy on herself too.” The tiniest hint of a frown worked its way on her face. She looked to Carmen, bright eyes unreadable. “…am I a bad person, for getting annoyed when she works so hard?”

That was…that was a difficult question. Her immediate response was _no_ , but…she shrugged mildly. “If you are, I am.” It was a mentality she wore herself on any number of occasions. “I feel like that’s a pretty natural response.”

Sylvia nodded shortly. “I don’t think you’re a bad person,” she said definitively, “so I must not be either.”

She stared slightly open-mouthed as Sylvia stood—pieces of greenery dislodged from her hair, falling to the tile from her impromptu lie-down. Lord, but Carmen wished she were that decisive.

She grabbed the vase and, pivoting on one leg, she placed it on the checkout counter with an impressive extension of her arm. As Carmen watched on, she hopped over to stand at the register, where she pulled out a little box of paper tags, beginning to fill one out. Suddenly her eyes lit up _. “Oh!”_

With enthusiasm, she reached below the counter again to pull out a thin case in deep red velvet. It reminded Carmen of the box her father kept the fancy cake knife in that he used at parties, except it was closer to the size of a piece of paper than knife-size.

“I have them today!” Sylvia gushed excitedly, her monotone going _high_.

Leaning over the counter, she turned the box in Carmen’s direction. In a practiced motion, she clicked the little latch free, and opened it.

“Oh!” said Carmen.

Beetles.

Beetles sat in neat rows along the inside of their case. Little pins kept them in place, their shiny wings and strange mandibles made distinct by the red of the velvet. Carmen was honestly not at all a bug person, but even she could admit this was an impressive variety of beetles.

Sylvia began to point a couple out. “This one is a Tin-Lined June—he defends himself by vibrating really fast if you touch him. This one is an Emerald Ash Borer—he’s a troublemaker, They wreak absolute havoc to forests if they get the chance. This big guy is my favorite; he’s a Fiery Searcher. He’s basically the big boss—he just eats everybody else. I like the green ones best, but really any of them. There’s a couple I’m trying to get, but they won’t ship them to the US because it’s illegal.” Taking a deep breath in recovery of the flood of information, Sylvia looked _directly up at her_ , hey. “You see?”

“They’re very nice,” Carmen said, even though she honestly thought they were a little gross. The case did help, made them feel more like intricate little sculptures than bugs, and she could admit the iridescence that several of them boasted was beautiful. She obviously loved them.

Sylvia grinned, the first shift out that consistent blank affect she had seen on the girl from the beginning. “Thank you,” she said, “for complementing my beetles.”

She gently put the case away, tucked back under the counter were it wouldn’t get plant debris on its fancy case. “I have this online boyfriend,” Sylvia said.

“Oh?” That…seemed like an abrupt shift?

“His name is Brad,” she sighed, expression serene. “He likes insects too.”

_Ah._

She returned to the little tag, finishing the inscription. “We met on this forum where he was trying to identify this bug in his backyard, so we’ve bonded over that. He’s a bit of a musclehead, but he’s really sweet. I’m trying to get Gwen to drive me up to this entomology convention in the fall to meet him, but she doesn’t like him very much. I told her she has no room to talk when she’d such a mess.” She blinked back to her. “What about you? Are you dating anyone?”

“Oh, no,” Carmen tugged at the hem of her shirt. A familiar discomfort arose at the question, and she glanced away as Sylvia tied the little tag onto the arrangement. “I don’t really like anyone like that.”

Sylvia paused, tilting her head. “Your aura went all queasy when I asked that. I’m sorry. Is that a bad question for you?”

She wasn’t sure how to respond to that, though objectively she thought it probably was. It took her a second to recognize why the question felt familiar. Oh. “No, it’s not your fault,” she said. “Just…family things again, I suppose.” Under had hand, the pick-up order crinkled. “Oh, yes, I almost forgot what I came in here for! I have a flower arrangement to pick up, when you get the chance.”

“Let me see?” Sylvia took the paper from her, reading over it for a second before handing it back. “Got it.” Sylvia hopped over to the cold case, water sloshing at the bottom of the vase in her hand.

Carmen bit her lip. Actually, she did kind of want to talk about it? Sylvia had listened to her before. "My father keeps trying to set me up with his client's sons," she admitted.

Pointedly, Sylvia looked back to her.

“I’m sorry,” Carmen sputtered immediately. “I don’t mean to keep making it all about me when we talk.”

Sylvia ignored her distress. “Are you joking? I know I was rambling for at least ten minutes just now. Most people would have cut me off. If anything, you should talk more.”

“Mm, well.” Carmen shrugged reluctantly.

She seemed to locate a vase in amongst the shelves, and turned back. "You don't like them."

For a second Carmen thought she was talking about the flowers, before understanding. "They're not as bad as their fathers,” she said finally, which was maybe more than Sylvia needed to know.

Truthfully, she was underselling them a bit. Some of them seemed like perfectly nice guys. When they tried to flirt with her, though, no matter how innocent it just made her uncomfortable. Really, she couldn't recall a time when any hint of anything more than friendship _didn't_ make her uncomfortable. She just...didn't know how to react. She should know how to react, right? She was halfway through high school. She rubbed her arm. "I'm just...not interested in them."

"Hm." Sylvia tilted her head consideringly, fluorescents tinted green from above falling across her face. "Could you be interested in different things? As in, maybe not those men? Like Gwen is.”

Carmen frowned. She had thought about it, but, being honest with herself, it still felt off-base. "I don’t know." She'd had less experience with that, but Mallory’s fumbled passes, though she knew she was sorry about them, did not feel like an improvement. "I don’t know."

Sylvia gave a soft hm. “Well you don’t have to know now. For now, little things might be easier, like you were saying last time. You did talk to your father.”

“I did,” she had to agree. She felt the weight lessen on her shoulders.

“New, important task, then: tell your father you don’t like them. Just that.” She referred back to the order, plugging a series of codes into the register. “Then you could go from there.”

Carmen set an elbow on the counter. “You could be some kind of guru, you know.”

Running her card, Sylvia handed it back between her fingers, as though offering a business card. She slid the vase across the counter. “I try.”

\--

Narma hadn’t spent a lot of time at the pier, which was another wasted opportunity.

On the positive, that meant when Manuel showed up after her bus ride from the Institute, she had already spied a myriad of new spots along the way she was interested to check out.

He waved her over to a little restaurant along the way. “Hey, this place has sweet potato fries. Sound good to you?”

A man after her own heart. “Absolutely,” she gushed, striding over to him.

He eyed her little suit jacket over her more traditional kurti. “Look at you, all professional.” Seriously, he lowered his voice. “Don’t let the industry change you,” he said. Then grinned.

“You’re too late,” she stuck her nose up, handing over her bag when he reached to take it. “I have sold out entirely. This is the last time you will see me. After these fries, I’ll be taking my helicopter to New York post haste. It was good knowing you. I will remember you when I speak about the little people.”

“Oh, the humanity.” He grinned, eyes sparkling.

She couldn’t hold it, and she cracked up into her hand. “No, no, but it was good. Mostly. There’s this girl in my group who is just...the most stuck up. She was so pissed because people wouldn’t call her by her pretentious nickname. Also, I feel like I really didn’t understand what kind of place the institute _was_.”

They said they had clients; maybe they had a label out of the institute as well? It bothered her that she didn’t know. Also, she hadn’t realized there were people coming to be there that weren’t actual designers. That would made sense, though—it wasn’t as though the only thing the Institute taught was design, so of course it would have its own little subcategories of business, construction…modeling? Were there models there? Okay, she really needed to look into that.

“But you still thing it’s going to be good for you?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Hell yes!” She shot back, a grin coming to her face. “I am so freaking zazzed, honestly.”

He smiled, puppy eyes glistening. “Great.” He sighed, then. “All I’ve got is the café, for now. Feels pretty sad by comparison.”

Aw, damn, she hadn’t meant to make him feel bad. She pointed a finger. “You _are_ the best, though.”

He seemed to consider that, before shrugging. “That is true.” He gave a small grin, showing his teeth just a little.

It was a noisy little place, sort of rustic to play into the feeling of the pier. A band played pounding in the background as she stripped off her jacket. “How was work today?”

“Oh, you know,” he peered nonchalantly from the corner of his eye. “This huge group came in and sat in the corner. They were having mysterious meetings, and really causing a spectacle. Then they just stayed there forever.”

Her lip twitched up, recognizing the jab. “Well, they’d better not get used to it; that’s our designated loitering area.”

He leaned back, the fries they’d ordered on the way in coming up for him to snatch one. “So, should I be expecting two more drinks on the order from now on?”

Narma frowned. She…wasn’t sure she was ready to say that yet. They had really just met these guys. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She picked through her fries. “We don’t really know them that well.”

“Hm.” Manuel’s smile waned a little. “Okay. Are you…alright?”

“Yes, yes, sorry,” she said. _Agh_ , but they were part of their party, yes? Members of their squadron. She didn’t need to be doing this jealous thing again. She shook off the thought. “Enough about me. What have you been up to?”

“Mm,” he sat us suddenly. “I did find out my uncle is coming into town.”

She blinked. “Oh, really? That’s funny, we were just talking about that.”

He quirked his jaw—he had the faintest beginnings of stubble, one of the things that reminded her he was a few steps ahead of her in life. I do appreciate a mature guy. How old was he, actually? She wasn’t sure if he was in college or high school. She should really know that by now. “Well,” he said, “our recent conversation might have spurned someone on to reach out to his estranged family.”

_Hold on._ “Estranged?” Hadn’t he said his uncle just didn’t get around well?

He winced, rubbing the back of his neck with his clean hand. “Yes, I may have been a little dishonest about that whole situation. It’s kind of a tense situation, to be honest.”

She sat back. “Why? What happened?”

He sighed, eyes falling to his food. “Eh, my uncle and my mother had a big falling out when I was a kid. He had this…gambling problem? And he didn’t thing it was a problem but my mother thought he was a bad influence.” His eyes were a bit far away. “He was a great uncle, though. He really cared about my sisters and me. Even once my mother passed away, though, he felt like he wasn’t welcome. I’m trying now to get him and my father to talk, but it’s…a work in progress.”

“Oh.” Narma was a little taken aback at the confession. She understood why he didn’t come out with that outright, though—that was really heavy. Quietly, she said, “I’m sorry you’re having to deal with that.”

To her surprise, he raised his head and smiled, but it was a little weak. “Hey, this is a good thing. It’s hard, with the tension, but I know if they can work this out than everyone will be happier.”

That was a nice way of thinking about it. She hated to think he was in that kind of tense situation, though—it put a tender pang in her heart. “Yeah, definitely.”

Manuel stared back at her for a moment, and her pulse jumped a little at the focus. As her cheeks reddened, he took a deep breath and said. “Well, we’re both about done. Would you like to check out the pier?

She breathed. “Yes, let’s go.”

She realized then she might have been in big, big trouble.

They moved out to the boardwalk proper, which seemed to be mostly a tourist trap. There was an arcade, and they spent their spare change being not very good at anything. They explored the little shops, laughing to each one at the not at all disguised pot paraphrenia and gaudy trinkets with SEATTLE stamped all over them.

“Look at this thing, it’s dreadful.” She held up a little creature made of shells with googly eyes, I LOVE SEATTLE written across its feet. There wasn’t even a beach here!

“Aw,” Manuel took the thing, holding it delicately aloft by its keychain links, “I think it’s cute.”

She furrowed her brow, lips twitching. “Sorry, I think we have to break up.”

“Ah, what? No.”

Suddenly, a crash echoed out over the pier. She and Manuel ducked to the floor, covering their heads and she tried to pinpoint the source. The ground shook, but it didn’t feel like another earthquake. Narma grit her teeth, the twisting knot in her belly confirming what she already guessed. _Seriously? Again?_

“What was that?”

She peered back to Manuel and his eyes were wild, wide with apprehension and searching around frantically. Her stomach sunk. She wondered if he already knew two. “I don’t know, but we should probably lie low for a moment.” Her mind raced—if it was a cryptid, she had to find a way to get away.

Manuel frowned, but didn’t get the chance to argue as a pounding outside insisted screams from around the boardwalk. She shrunk back as enormous legs came into view through the shop window—she recognized the zappy texture as belonging to Spindly, but they were wider, reminding Narma of the Urchin’s fin-like appendages _. Someone’s decided to mix and match._

She warred with herself. _If I send him out, he’ll be exposed. There’s no way he’ll let me go by myself. What can I do?!_

He grabbed her arm, just then. Eyes caught on hers, he said, “We have to get to the back. The more hidden we are the less likely we’ll get hit.”

Her mouth parted, and then she said, “Of course,” a plan forming.

She left her bag on the floor as they went to the back.

The storeroom was tiny, and the walls lined with cardboard muffled the screams outside. They ducked into a tiny corner. “This should be safer,” He whispered, as if the creature would hear their tiny voices.

She gasped suddenly, acting surprised. “My phone is still out there,” she said. “I’m going to go grab it, should take two seconds. We need to call for help.”

Manuel immediately protested. “But—”

“It will just be a second, you won’t even miss me.”

Not giving him the chance to stop her, she ducked through the double doors at a run.

_Liar._

She retrieved her bag. Inside was her scepter, and her phone—she ran out the door with it as quietly as possible. She didn’t want him to come looking for her, and she knew she was leaving him alone. _Sorry, Manuel._

She ducked into the next shop. It was empty, the patrons having fled—this probably had the same type of storeroom, as the shops were cookie cutter copies of each other. Quickly moving to the back, she quickly scanned for anyone who may have been left behind and then she pulled out her scepter. “Egeria star power, Make-up!”

The starry light descended over her.

Once suited, she ran outside to find her target. There, further down the pier was Spindly with an upgrade. It was using the metal structs of the lamp posts as conductors to suck in energy from fleeing tourists, were they dropped like stones on the pier. Well, at least this guy was stupid enough to make the same mistakes it had made before. Dumb enemies were the best.

“Hey big and ugly!”

The creature turned when her cry met its…ear? It recognized her; she knew it would. It chittered angrily, and it began to pound in her direction, huge. One of it’s fin-like feet came down and she let out a tiny scream as it smashed down on top of someone. There was a piercing crunch. _Oh shit, oh shit!_ She eyed the guy, trying to determine what kind of condition he was in. She had to get this thing out of there!

As it neared, she prepared her attack. Focusing on directionality the way she had seen Rory do, she dropped to the ground horizontally and fired. “Typhoon Strikedown!”

Geysers blasted from the window behind her, and she covered her face in protection as the glass followed. As she had hoped, the beast was knocked from the board walk and into the sea. _Hope you like fritzing out, buddy._

But there was no screech, no disappearing blip.

She waited, and slowly grew pale. Okay, maybe it went for the honorable death approach? It had the right to remain silent, I guess. Cautiously stepping forward, she moved to look over the edge.

She didn’t have to. As she got close, one spindly-fingered hand grasped the edge of the pier. She cursed as the top of its head appeared, then it’s electric maw. It seemed just fine.

She clenched her teeth. _Shit, it’s both of them! Spindly 2.0 is water resistant!_

Whelp, there went her only advantage.

Like a grasshopper, it leaped the rest of the way onto the pier, the wood cracking beneath it. Nearby, a group of school-age boys covered their heads and wailed. She grit her teeth—there were way too many people here. She had to lead this thing away or these people were going to be worrying about worse than a coma.

She stumbled back but held her ground. _Okay, what else hurts this thing?_ She eyed its skin, still buzzing with electricity. Magnets _, right? Unless that’s gone two._

Oh, she hoped it wasn’t. She had no other ideas.

Crap, but where could she find a magnet???

Eyes widening, she turned back to the arcade nearby. Didn’t some arcade machines use magnets? But, ah, would it be enough?

Might as well try.

She didn’t have to goad the cryptid; it already looked hungry for her energy, or whatever. It already knew it could drain them without end, apparently. It slashed after her, prior mantis-like silhouette now something like an electric stilt-walker. Arguably worse. She scrambled into the arcade with an absolute lack of grace, hip-checking the machines as the cryptic ducked into the cramped space behind her like a nightmare.

She turned, watching the thing bend its limbs into all kinds of backwards angles, what the fuck, opening its maw towards her as the energy-sucking began.

She hissed, pushing her back up against the back side of a pin ball machine at the far side of the room. That was the one disadvantage to the cramped space, dammit. She could feel it, still faint and causing the simpler machines to wig out, but it didn’t bring her to her knees. The magnets…maybe they were doing something.

She only had a second to marvel before a fin-like arm came crashing down overtop of her.

Pain rocked through her shoulder, but she managed to move without getting smashed or sucked dry like a Caprisun pouch. The machine didn’t make it, crunching like a scrap car. Blinding light kicked out, and she winced back, shielding her eyes as the creature jolted angrily.

Again, it was doing something, but not enough. Her heart pounded as the electricity failed, letting the creature go.

Think, think! How else had they killed this thing? Last time Mallory had overcharged it. She glanced around. There were a lot of machines in here. Maybe she could do something like that?

_Fwoom,_ the sucking energy. She staggered, her leg getting caught in the stream full-stop. Her knee failed, and she crashed to the floor. No—she dragged herself behind the prize counter. It seemed to be fading, a little—maybe it was only incapacitating for them at full force?

She raised her arms. “Typhoon Strikedown!” She had to wear it down; if it went after her like this she was _done._

The water crashed the creature to the floor. It hissed, squashed, but the storms of geysers were not stood enough to penetrate. But it took it a minute to get up.

She eyed the water wearily, skirting around it as pins and needles stabbed at her limbs. She pulled herself around to another machine, crying out for attention. Please don’t shock me, guy.

It thrust out, stabbing into the machine. The electricity caught, and it seized, energy flowing into it too strong. Still, not enough.

Could it get to enough?

For an excruciating ten minutes, she played the same games, carefully dancing around the puddle and leading the beast around to receive systematic shocks. It wasn’t doing it. Internally, she was holding back frustrated tears. She’d never been stuck alone like this. She hated it.

(Manuel must have thought she’d ditched him.)

Finally, out of breath and haggard, she faced out into the arcade, escaped to the counter once again. She was surrounded by busted machines, flickering with electricity, loaded with magnetics like monster mines. She shook her head—she had to kill this thing. It was too strong, and it was going to just keep taking people if she didn’t stop it now. There were plenty of scared people hiding on the boardwalk. And then she saw it.

It was all laid out before her. She stood with the water splashed across the floor, the exposed wire showing on her left and right. The open-faced machines, the water, the monster with limbs carefully avoiding them but drenched. Her hands, closing enough to reach the machines on either side. Her clean, un-damp boots. Not rubber.

_Oh, fuck,_ she realized, understanding falling over her _. I’ve got to complete the circuit._

Her Typhoon could hit three of them. Not all. And she needed all. And the creature was coming towards her, no machines left to lure it in.

A coldness spread through her chest. Could…could she survive this? She’s healed from all kinds of flesh wounds, but this was her brain, her nerves. She could end up crispy.

This could kill her.

If she didn’t, though, the monster _would_.

It seemed to happen in slow motion. She was out of time. The creature surged towards her. _Oh, no_. She raised her arms. “ _TYPHOON STRIKEDOWN_!”

The rain fell. She thrust her arms to either side, kicked her boot out into the water. Touched the wires. All at once.

Her mouth opened. She could feel it in her teeth, for a millisecond.

_BZZZZZZ_ _ZZZZZZZZTT_ _—_

White-out.

\--

Awareness came and went. There was fire coursing under her skin. It was dark. It was darker.

She opened her eyes for a second and could see a dust mote, drifting past her face. Fade-out.

She couldn’t move. Something felt weird about her heart, the only thing she could pick up on. She could feel her lips move, form parts and particles of words she couldn’t understand.

Blue, flickering light, somewhere. There was a tingling like rain on her face, or pins and needles.

Dark.

\--

Slowly, awareness came back.

She sat up. It was a smooth motion, sudden, but tremors trickled through her as she did.

Ooooh boy, that was a bad one.

She brought her fingers up. She felt her face, but it didn’t feel numb anymore. Her fingers—they were painted deep plum and so she turned them over and so were her fingerbeds. Static traveled through her hair.

She felt over her body, taking stock. She could feel everywhere, though there was a lingering tingling sensation. The floor was dry. Must have evaporated it all. Damn. She was near in shock that she seemed relatively okay.

She transformed back in utter quiet.

It was semi-dark outside, and she hoped it wasn’t past seven. She grabbed her bag, and found her phone—battery was drained, of course. A clock on the wall let her know it was 7:45. Still time to get home.

Anxiety twisted in her gut when she thought about the messages that would be waiting for her. She took a couple minutes to straighten her pedestrian clothes—make it look like she’d been having fun, not fighting to the death. _Krishna,_ she remembered the bruises she’d gotten when she was first starting out. How was she this okay? She peered at her reflection in a busted shop window. You almost couldn’t tell.

Boy, she hoped that thing hadn’t just left.

On the outskirts of the pier, there were news vans lingering. It seemed like they had mostly packed up. She didn’t know whether to feel depressed or relieved that somehow, they hadn’t noticed her.

She just had to play it cool. She would come up with an excuse for Manuel later.

\--

She wasn’t expecting to get bombarded the second she came in the door.

“Oh, my baby, I saw you on the television!”

She breathed an _oof_ as the air was pushed out of her, her mother’s stout body coming to grasp her in the arched orange doorway. “Mom? Television? What are you talking about?”

“That creature at the pier,” her father barked, tone harsh as he hovered behind them.

Narma’s eyes flew open. She’d seen the vans, but she hadn’t thought they’d seen anything whilst the attack was in progress. What all had they seen?

He didn’t hesitate to tell her. “You were right there in the line of fire! And where was that boy of yours? Surely not protecting you.”

Okay. So they must have seen her wondering around looking like a normal human being. That was good. Then again.

Two different defensive instincts sprung up within her: firstly, I don’t need to be protected. She defended her life every day, and the lives of others. They didn’t have any idea that battles she was thrown into everyday! She had almost _died._ And here she stood, whole and full of power.

Second, to making a defense of Manuel. She’d been the one to run away from him, not the other way around. “What does he have to do with that?” She pulled away from her mother, who stared back at her with worry. “He didn’t know it was going to happen! How was he supposed to know? These things just keep popping up, and he’s just as shocked as everyone else—”

Her mother breathed, “This has happened before?”

Oh, shoot. Narma paused, mouth hanging open for a second. “The boat party. It showed up there. I was fine! He wouldn’t have even been there if it wasn’t for me!”

“You came home alone,” her father’s grumble cut in, and she went silent. “You came home alone, after that had happened? He didn’t stay to check that you were okay?”

That wasn’t fair! “Everybody was just trying to get to safety, like everyone else! It was chaos out there, _Bāpa_.”

“You can see where his priorities lie,” he said, fists balled. “This boy is a disgrace. He is no good for you—I insist you stop seeing him.”

Narma scowled. “ _Bāpa!”_

“I don’t want to hear any disrespect,” he folded his arms gravely. “That’s final. A man who leaves my daughter in danger is no man at all.”

“I agree,” her mother said, nodding stiffly. “We are so grateful you are safe, but this cannot happen again.”

Narma wanted to scream—they spoke as if they knew anything at all! She nodded roughly, then showed herself out. She didn’t need to hear this.

She could handle herself.


	9. Chapter 9

**Episode 9: The Risk and the Reward; or, It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s…!**

The next morning was tense. Narma woke earlier than she would have normally, the starlight reflecting in from outside, and she could immediately feel the ache in her body of post-battle. Her covers pulled up to her chin, her mind flicked back through yesterday’s events like the film in one of those little view finders for children. She’d been alone. That was terrifying—she never wanted to get stuck in that position again.

She’d left Manuel alone.

The clock beside her said 5:00 AM, long before she needed to get up for her internship. On the nightstand, her phone was dark and quiet, but she knew it would have charged by now and judgement day was awaiting her. With a hum of displeasure, she snagged the phone, flicking the charger away with her thumb. The screen vibrated awake as she turned it on. Ten new messages.

Ho boy.

**_Narma? Where are you?_ **

**_You said just a second_ **

**_I know you wanted to grab your phone;_ **

**_we should have just used mine. You shouldn’t be out there!_ **

**_Are you getting this?_ **

The length of time between the texts was sporadic.

_**Signal’s really bad.** _

_**You’ve been gone for a while. Did you leave?** _

_**I’m worried** _

_**That’s it, I’m coming out there.** _

Narma sat up, her covers falling away from her silky night shirt. He’d left? When had that happened? She didn’t see him while she was fighting that thing—at what point had he gone out?

**_Narma, I can’t find you. I asked_ **

**_the paramedics if they had seen_ **

**_anyone like you and they said no;_ **

**_I have no idea what happened to you._ **

**_Please message me as soon_ **

**_as you see this. I have no idea what’s_ **

**_going on._ **

_**Last Sent 7:15 PM.**_ About thirty minutes before she left the pier.

She knew it was early, but spurned on by his urgency, she began to plug in her own message. She paused. What can I even say to him?

…biting her lip, she created her lie.

_**Manuel, I’m so sorry, I hope you are okay.** _

She usually avoided text walls, but she didn’t want to bombard him with a ton of messages, so she kept it all together.

**_When I went to grab my phone, I saw it was dead,_ **

**_and the store was out of power. I didn’t know you_ **

**_had your phone—I feel stupid now, I went to check_ **

**_the next shop over, like maybe only the one had been_ **

**_knocked when that thing passed by. After that_ **

She hesitated.

**_the monster showed up, and so I had to hide. I must_ **

**_have been too close to an outlet or something the next time_ **

**_that thing came around, because I got zapped and passed out._ **

**_It was late when I woke up, and by the time I got home, I was_ **

**_so tired I just fell asleep immediately. Let me know when you_ **

**_get this. I’m so sorry!_ **

The words, while the sentiment was true, felt plasticine. She…didn’t like this, lying to him. Lying to anyone, but especially this boy who’d been so worried, and she had just left him alone. She tapped out, I hope you can forgive me, in its own little tab beneath the text wall, before deleting them. Seeing those words only felt more incriminating.

She waited for several moments and didn’t receive a reply. _He must still be asleep. Good._ She had hoped he hadn’t been losing any sleep over her. She would just have to wait to hear back from him.

Noting the time, she was reminded that there were other who probably needed to know about this too. She thought about bringing up the group text, but she wasn’t sure she had the energy to keep up with all three (or, wow, five? She didn’t even have the new girl’s numbers)…of her cohorts just then.

Flicking through her message logs, she brought up the one person she knew was going to be up this early.

_**Rory, hey. Did you hear about** _

_**the attack at the pier yesterday?** _

_**!!! Yes! Hey, girl.** _

There she was. Thought so.

_**I was wondering where the** _

_**thing went to! I didn’t even know** _

_**what had happened until I saw it** _

_**in the news feed last night.** _

_**Yeah, I was there, it was kind of sudden** _

Rory’s reply was instantaneous.

**_OMG are you okay???_ **

**_Yeah. I don’t know if I killed it or it_ **

**_just disappeared. Kind of blacked out_ **

**_at that point? wHOOPS_ **

**_You took that thing on by yourself?!_ **

**_She shook her head, She didn’t get on here trying to guilt trip her friend._ **

**_That’s not important right now._ **

**_Yes it is. :(_ **

Rory’s sad little face blinked up at her, sticking her somewhere in the chest with something sharp. She sat back, shoulders settling on the cold wood of her bedframe. She didn’t think she would ever stop appreciating having a friend who cared so sincerely as Rory did. Her thumb hovered over the keys, wanting to let the fond feeling linger, but no. There were developments.

_Just…play it off. You may have almost died, but you didn’t. No need to make her worry._

**_Thanks, but updates. It was spindly legs,_ **

**_but it was like it had been grafted_ **

**_with the other one_ **

**_So there’s only one monster now?_ **

**_And it might be dead?_ **

**_I don’t think so. It still looked too much_ **

**_like Spindly. I think they may have just_ **

**_gotten an upgrade._ **

**_Dang._ **

**_We’ll just have to watch them. If they_ **

**_get to where they’re able to hit us_ **

**_both at once again, we might have a_ **

**_bigger problem._ **

**_10-4._ **

**_I’m going to go stretch._ **

**_You live your best life, girl._ **

**_You better not be lying to me!_ **

**_If you’re hurt, I’m going to kick your butt!_ **

**_Yeah yeah_ **

She almost closed her phone down, then moved back to the keyboard.

**_Thanks._ **

She took a deep breath, skull thumping back into the pillows. Okay, that was taken care of. Now, she just had to worry about getting ready for work.

And not speaking to her parents, because she was still pissed.

_\--_

Sailor Boreas lowered her (Rory’s?)—the phone back to her bag, as she perched on the depot’s roof, a pit in her chest. She read back over the messages she had sent—she knew she was a hypocrite. But she had good reasons for keeping these nightly outings off her friends’ radar. Creeping along the edge of the twilit rooftop, she listened down into the alley below.

“—you know the guys are jumpy as shit.”

“What a fucking joke,” said the other guy. “From what they said through the pane, they got bagged by a little girl in hooker boots.”

She peered back, staring at her foot gear. _Hey! So not hooker boots._

The guy continued. He was standing close to the other, whatever they were looking over obscured by the alley darkness. “I’d like to see that bitch try to come up on me; they’d never find her.”

She shivered, leaning back from the edge.

The previous night, she had heard a couple of these guy’s buddies talking about this meet-up, so she hoped something good was going to come of it. It seemed her capture of the two dealers before the camping trip hadn’t halted the plan after all. There was still some talk of a big deal going down in the city. As she’d thought about it more, she’d decided that it might be more helpful to go the Decima route and stick with re-con for now. The more she could find out about the big exchange, the more she’d be able to do about it.

After a little while, they hadn’t named another location and whatever business they had come there to do was done. She sighed. She wished this would have been a more productive night out, but sometimes she just had to take the loss. Celene was already going to reem her for having been out so late so long, the threads of sunrise were streaking across the sky. She would just have to keep an eye on their rotations, try to pin-point if there was a common location nearby.

She free-ran, still in uniform, across the lower businesses of the city. It was still earlier enough that not a lot of folks were out and about, so the risk of her being seen was still low. She did have to stop a couple times, which was disappointing. She’d barely gotten three hours of sleep, and Brenda was coming back from vacation for the summer rush, and so she had a shift at the convenience store awaiting her as well. Thank goodness she was out of school.

She had paused on the rooftop of an apartment building, when she heard a familiar voice call from behind. “Hey! Wait, stay there for a minute. It’s me.”

Startled, Sailor Boreas turned to the neighboring rooftop to see Eddie poking his head out the top floor window. _Eddie. What’s he doing up at this time in the morning? I didn’t know he lived here._

Needing a breather anyway, she waited, curious to see what he wanted. Eddie was one of the few civilians who had interacted with her in-uniform before, so it wasn’t an additional risk to see what he might want.

After just a minute, the latch to the roof opened up. Eddie stepped through the roof-entrance, coming to the edge. “Hey. Thanks for waiting. I don’t know if you remember me…” he seemed to hesitate, and Sailor Boreas quirked a brow. “But my name is Edward. I work for the Seattle Times.”

“The Seattle Times?” She had to pretend like she didn’t know already, right. “That’s an upgrade. Aren’t you a high-schooler?”

Eddie stopped, backing up to tug at his collar. He was wearing a t-shirt with Oppy the Mars rover on it; it was pretty cute. “Uh? Yeah, I am. I guess you do remember me.”

She made an effort to deepen her voice; make it as different from her own as possible. “I don’t exactly have exclusive chats with every guy off the street. I remember.”

“Oh.” Eddie glanced to the side.

“Right, of course.”

“So,” she said, all business as she cocked her hands on her hips. “You wanted to speak with me.”

“Yes,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “I was wondering if you could tell me anything about the recent attacks all around the city.”

Er, can’t help him there. “We wish we knew more,” she admitted. “We’re just trying to handle them as they come up for now. Sorry.”

He looked disappointed. “Oh, gotcha. Well, there was something else I wanted to ask you about while you were here, if you don’t mind.”

Honestly, she liked Eddie, and she wanted to help him, but she was afraid there was just not a lot she was going to be able to give him. “Depends on the question but go ahead.” And then she remembered the conversation she’d had with them heading out the last day of school, and realized that she might have just made a mistake.

She hadn’t noticed, but Eddie brought up a tiny notebook he’d been keeping in his palm. He unclicked a pen as he pulled it from his pocket. “There are rumors that there is a copy-cat running around trying to do the thing you do, but with human criminals. It seems like flat-out vigilantism.” He licked his lips contemplatively, tilting his head. “I was wondering if you were aware of that, and what you would say to this individual if these rumors are true. Do you agree with what they’re doing? Disagree?”

Boreas, Rory, glanced away. This was a delicate question. Of course she’d heard of it; it was her. She didn’t want to encourage anyone following in her footsteps, and she also didn’t want to sway public opinion against herself if anything should happen. Really, she didn’t want to draw any more attention to the subject at all if she could help it. But maybe Eddie might feel less inclined to look into it if she told him?

Eddie seemed to interpret her silence more accurately than she had anticipated, because he slowly lowered the notebook. He unclicked the pen. “Hold on. That _is_ someone else, right?”

“…n-no,” she admitted weakly. “It’s me.”

Eddie glanced around himself, as if there were someone around to hear them. “Whoa, okay, wait. So are the Soldiers talking on human criminals now?”

“Just me,” she corrected sharply. From her own rooftop, she leaned over, looking him in the eye. Could he even tell that? She knew she was a kaleidoscope of dark holographics to him. “Listen, Eddie, I’m telling you this in confidence. The other soldiers don’t know about this either. I’m sorry, you can’t publish this.”

“They don’t _know_?” His brown eyes widened behind their frames. He looked worried. “I…I don’t understand the strategic advantage. I need you to elaborate.”

“It’s a collateral advantage,” she shot back stiffly. “You won’t publish this?”

He shook his head, a tiny motion. “…no.”

She glanced away. “…the new parties moving into the city are planning something major. I don’t know what, or how, but I’m trying to find out. They less of us involved, the less chance of additional casualties.”

He watched her from the opposite rooftop. His gaze was careful, examining. It was a look that make Boreas (Rory) think she might have underestimated his level seriousness here. “…so you have defenses against human weaponry.”

Her lip twisted down, and she crossed her arms. “…I can handle it.”

“What does that mean?” He was actually raising his voice then, but she didn’t want to get into it. “You’re impervious to bullets, or you can block them?”

Bor-…Rory didn’t say anything.

He stepped forward. She could hear his tennis shoes dig into the rooftop gravel. “Because I feel like I should tell you how much of a dangerous position you seem to be putting yourself in.”

“We heal quickly,” she countered.

“ _Are_ you human?” As she turned back to look at him his squinted gaze was decidedly pointed. “Because gang activity—that’s a lot of people. You should know, the police aren’t exactly happy about this either. You don’t have a lot of supporters here.”

“Why are _you_ so against this?” She crossed her arms. “I thought you would understand.”

Eddie frowned. “Why do you say that?”

She opened her mouth, then stopped. Because he had told her so—that the vigilante was just a civilian and wouldn’t be able to fight like the Soldiers would. Of course, she couldn’t say that. “Because you seem to get how important the safety of this city is,” she offered instead. Her voice softened despite herself. “I can tell you care about your work.”

He pursed his lips. He examined her for a moment, and then his conviction faltered on his face. His brow furrowed. “…the civilian population is largely in favor,” he said, “for various reasons. We’ve been running some special interest pieces with reader emails. You should check them out. They have some good points.” He tightened his jaw, not looking at her. “I still think it’s a bad idea.” He turned away. “But I won’t say anything.”

Rory didn’t like this disquieting feeling. It seemed so tense, the two of them separated by several feet and the ledges of two separate buildings. But she knew she couldn’t say anything more. She had to trust him.

And it was _Eddie_. She wanted to, too.

He glanced up to the sky, back still turned to her. “The sun is rising,” he pointed up, where blue bled in through the edges. “You should make yourself scarce.”

“Thanks,” she said, quiet. But he was already heading inside.

\--

Mallory didn’t want to talk about it, and she would be just as happy if she were able to just not talk about it indefinitely. As she sat with the sheets of her bed tangled around her legs in an elaborate nest, she didn’t know what she was feeling—she wasn’t angry, exactly. Disheartened, maybe. Bitter. But _how had she not seen it?_

It made a lot more sense, now that she knew. It wasn’t that the…girls were summoning the monsters, they just happened to be around whenever they appeared they same way they were. Who know how that worked. She hadn’t even known there was a possibility there were more of them! Her glasses glared at the edges with the reflection of blue light from her laptop, and she frowned, pensive. Hm. She guessed she wasn’t the newest anymore.

Maybe she was a little embarrassed.

Seeing Carmen’s name flick active in the messenger, she sent her a quick message.

Mallory Dunbar [MD] invited Carmen Rodriguez [CR] to chat at 1:43 PM

[MD]: Hey.

Carmen Rodriguez [CR] joined the chat.

[CR]: There you are. Crazy news, huh?

[MD]: Yeah. I don’t know what to think. Have you spoken to either of them since the other day? Before I was running into her everyday, but now it’s like they’ve vanished into the abyss.

It was so much wasted work. Mallory had poured so much energy into interrogating—her, and it turned out she’d just been harassing another protentional ally. That also meant they still had no idea who was behind this, and so were no closer to stopping it. It was like, with the most pathetic little killing blow, all the nightmares she’d had about being discredited in this had come true. Her efforts had been absolutely meaningless.

[CR]: Yeah, I spoke to Sylvia. They’re still trying to come to terms with things, but they’re staying in the city.

[MD]: I would hope so.

She was glad it didn’t come through as bitchy as it had been in her head. Her eyes flicked back to the little file of information she had gathered on them, printed on the library computer, where Gwen and Sylvia’s younger photos stared back at her. She wondered what was going to happen when their parents finally showed up? If they were soldiers, they needed to stay here. They couldn’t be hauled back to Reno.

Dammit, she didn’t want that for other reasons either. Freaking complex feelings about failure and hot girls! Disgraceful.

[CR]: You should talk to her.

[MD]: Who? (Who, ha.) Gwen? Why? I’ve got nothing to say to her.

[CR]: I don’t believe that, Carmen said. She’s not our enemy anymore.

Mallory peered away from the screen as though Carmen might see her conflicted expression through the screen. Yes, there was…that. The obstacle she’d placed before her as The Reason she couldn’t feel anything but suspicious towards the other pair, and not…other things.

[MD]: Maybe, she clicked back grumpily. Which was true. 

[CR]: You don’t think they’re still against us?

[MD]: Their story sounded bogus as shit.

[CR]: You know you want to ask them about it.

She burrowed in her sheets. That wasn’t…not true.

[CR]: You should talk to her, Carmen reiterated. You have to take up the mantle of showing the new members the ropes! I am passing it to you. *places it in your hands*

Okay, the stared actions were a little cheesy. She hadn’t seen anyone except the losers in the Slenderman cult use that unironically.

…but it was kind of fun.

[MD]: *stares at responsibility like a chunk of haddock*...what the hell am I supposed to do with this?

[CR]: >.< talk to her!!!! I have her information.

[MD]: Fine, fine. Only for you, Carmen.

She jammed her hands defiantly in her lap. She still didn’t think it was a great idea, but. It was probably better than just sitting here running herself around about it.

Mallory Dunbar [MD] invited Sarah King [SK] to chat at 1:52 PM

[MD]: Attention, loser.

_Nah, delete that._

[MD]: Didn’t think you could evade me forever, did you?

_No. You’re doing the avoiding here, don’t be a coward and a liar._

[MD]: It’s me.

Sarah King [SK] joined the chat.

[SK]: I had guessed. You know, from the title line announcing it was you.

[MD]: Speak for yourself. Like some kind of fake-ass catfish.

[SK]: Managed to track me down on the world wide web, too? Nowhere is safe.

[MD]: Your sister gave Carmen your info. Carmen passed it along.

[SK]: Ah.

[MD]: It seems that the job of orientating you guys seems to have fallen onto my shoulders. So, be expecting any number of notices and bulletins as things progress. For now, I suppose we should just jump into it.

\--

[SK]: Well okay then. Learn me a thing or two. What do I need to know?

“What’s that expression?”

“Hm?” Gwen peered over to where Sylvia was lounging on the couch. She was presently logging some of the new samples she had gotten at camp; that was a productive week, and she had her laptop open on her other side, where she was aggressively tracking a bid on a rare species on eBay. Apparently, it was supposed to be a present for Brad. _Great._ She shook herself out of her musing, remembering she had been asked a question. “Oh, nothing. Just paying Patricia for our new digs.”

This was supposed to be their last night in the motel. Good thing, too—it had been a chore to convince the owner to let them keep the room while they were away for the week. The guy wasn’t happy. Still, it apparently fell under the umbrella of her “special talents,” so she wasn’t complaining.

Sylvia turned towards her. “That looks like a chat window to me.”

[MD]: Okay. First of all, you can’t tell anyone.

[SK]: Done.

[MD]: ...okay. We meet up for training every once in a while. Rory’s kind of the de-facto leader, you probably picked up on that. She arranges those.

[SK]: You ever do anything outside of those?

“I could be messaging Patricia,” Gwen offered, finishing typing nonchalantly as her sister scrutinized her from the filthy couch.

Sylvia hummed. “Your eyes wouldn’t be all twinkly. You look like you just saw something really funny. You’re talking to that girl.”

Gwen shrugged. “Mm, maybe.”

[MD]: uh

[SK]: I mean it seems to me that it might be beneficial to have smaller training groups too. You guys had to pair off when you were fighting big, bad, and spiky. Are there any combo training sessions?

[MD]: Oh.

[MD]: No, not presently.

[MD]: we could work in something like that. More members means more combinations.

[SK]: you’re being awfully civil.

It was a far cry from the other girl’s perpetual antagonism, which was an improvement. She was hoping circumstances might lead to them being able to get on better terms—she hadn’t explicitly asked for that, but even if she had, she couldn’t have imagined it would have turned out the way it did.

“No, eat it,” Sylvia said under her breath, tapping the mousepad with particular aggression.

“Did you get it?” Gwen turned to watch. Sylvia’s roots were starting to show—the dye didn’t last long, it seemed.

“No cheating,” Sylvia scolded. There were two more decisive clicks before she sat back, squishing into the couch back. “Yes, I did.”

Gwen nodded, watching Mallory’s typing icon flicking in and out with contentment. “I just think her whole serious business thing is fun to watch,” Gwen elaborated as the mood mellowed from Sylvia’s blitzkrieg bidding war. “I don’t know. She’s an interesting type of person.”

[MD]: It’s called being a professional. With your evasive shit, we’re now back to square one trying to figure out where these things are coming from. We can’t afford to not get along right now.

[SK]: What’s your thing?

[MD]: my “thing”?

[SK]: your power. It’s thematic, right? That girl Narma’s water-based, your Leader (insert comment about taking me to her, for alien purposes) was using wind. Carmen is...?

[MD]: Harmony, apparently. Seems to be literal or metaphorical.

[SK]: No wonder her and Sylvia get along. She’s all about the new-age self-help sty-lie.

[SK]: and you? What’s your special planet power?

[MD]: It’s called Decima.

[MD]: The planet, I mean.

[SK]: Ooh, edgy.

[MD]: And my power is Fate. Suck it.

Sylvia retreated to her bed, going cross-legged and pressing her thumbs and fore-fingers together. Guess it was meditation time—better keep it quiet, then. Closing her eyes, Sylvia said, “Is that ‘interesting’ like you want to make a big file and catalogue all the things she is, or ‘interesting’ like you think she’s cute and want to kiss her face? I can’t tell.”

Gwen shook her head, a smirk tugging at her lips. “Why not both?”

Sylvia blew a loud raspberry from her cocoon of zen.

[SK]: Sounds fake, but alright. 

[MD]: If you haven’t forgotten, I’m your designated superior at the moment. You two are going to have to start deferring to me, at least until you’ve settled in. And we’ve all got to come up with some kind of strategy to figure out where these things are coming from. I’m going to have to start investigating with a wide comb again, which is a shitty way to work.

[SK]: Oh, so the investigating thing wasn’t just me, then? (Ha.)

[MD]: Of course not. It’s why I was at the hospital, remember? Pay attention, operative.

_Operative._ Gwen wanted to laugh. _So serious._

[SK]: Well, how did you learn to do it?

[SK]: Investigating, I mean.

[MD]: Well. I mean, I’ve been doing it for years, so it wasn’t new to me. Cryptids, and the like. These things should honestly be my element, which is one

reason this is so infuriating. Of course, I always worked independently before.

_Holy crap._

[SK]: Cryptids? Like bigfoot and mothman?

Okay, that was too good. She could absolutely see the other girl hiking through the woods with one of those ridiculous Yeti calls. It fit way too well. _Oh, no._

[MD]: Yes.

[SK]: Do you still do that?

There was a pause.

[MD]: The Soldiers are a relatively new development, so presumably I would keep doing it. There was actually a rumor floating around about some mysterious noises happening up by the old Miller house in the woods—classic case, family murdered, nobody’s been up there in years. I thought it might be the work of a poltergeist, but we’ve got bigger things going on. I’ll just have to revisit it later.

[MD]: Unless.

[SK]: Unless?

[MD]:...this could serve as a training opportunity. I could go over some of the basis of our investigation strategies, and I’d get a look at whatever’s up there. If the others have a mutual evening off at the same time, it could be beneficial.

[SK]: That sounds like a plan to me.

[MD]: I’ll need to check with the others. After that, I’ll get back to you.

Mallory Dunbar [MD] left the chat.

Well then.

Gwen sat back, turning her attention to her sister. “Hey. What’s your opinion on ghosts?”

Sylvia didn’t open her eyes, breathing steady and slow. “Sounds like bad energy to me.”

\--

Narma heard back from Manuel that morning, who wasn’t exactly happy with her actions at the pier.

“You should have called me,” he scolded her over the phone, his voice rough from sleep. “That was so dangerous. I was worried! Some people got really hurt yesterday. Have you been to the hospital?”

For a second, there was a burst of nerves, that maybe somehow he knew about the battle. Then she remembered she had told him she’d gotten shocked.

“No, but I’m fine! Really! My parents are really freaking out, but I’m okay. Can I come see you after work?”

“I have a shift,” he sighed.

“Then I’ll come to the café.”

“Alright.” There was a long pause on the line, and she could hear his breathing, like he was trying to find words. “Narma. Why did you...”He cut himself off.

“Huh?” She asked into the receiver, heart pounding.

“...never mind. See you later.”

The next week passed in relative peace. Narma avidly avoided her parents, but the internship gave her an additional point of focus. It was more boring work than she had anticipated, mostly running the paperwork for different custom orders, but it still seemed like good information.

‘Antoni’ was a huge pain in the butt, though. She’d changed strategies, actively avoiding conversation as they did their work in independently. She caught her sketching designs on a fancy tablet once or twice, though—clean, harsh lines in her work, far more clinical than Narma’s darker jewel-tone repertoire. More Avant Garde. She might have liked to ask her about it, if she weren’t such a raging bitch.

Narma laid on her bed and made edits to her sketches. She’d known she’d be making their dresses for Carmen’s party, but she hadn’t really been able to nail down the designs until now.

Valarie had let them know about halfway through the second week they had the option of taking inspiration from one of the departments at the Institute. “I’m sure they’d be flattered if you chose to do so, and while there wouldn’t necessarily be any extra ‘points,’ they may choose to feature your work in the department. It could be a great way to get your name out.”

At that point, she remembered that the Institute’s guest residents were a collaboration from NASA, and a concept slid into place.

They all had their own planets, and the swirls and patterns of heavenly bodies could be gorgeous. Maybe she could use that? She was sure she could pitch it, make the connection to the recent ARC missions. It felt kind of serendipitous, though so were many things in her life. 

They didn’t have a due date, but according to the initial outline, they could turn in the proposal for their collection any time. At the end of the week, she moved through the building with purpose, her folder clutched to her chest.

It only took a few minutes to make her way back to the labs. When she passed through the doors, the assistants directed her into a back lab were Professor Mooringer was processing some test materials.

As she entered the room, the woman was hunched over a microscope, taking notes with one hand. Her strawberry-blonde hair was loosely tied back, the mass of it reminding Narma of the wild-visages of scientists in sci-fi films. The woman didn’t seem to see her as she approached, muttering to herself. Eventually, she raised her voice. “Professor Mooringer?”

The woman gasped, whipping around to place a hand over her chest. “Oh,” she breathed. “One of you.”

The image was almost comical, except that the woman looked to harried that Narma legitimately felt bad. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She closed her eyes, taking a breath. “No, don’t be sorry, you just startled me. I tend to get a bit absorbed, I’m afraid.” Relaxing, she pushed up her spectacles. “No trouble. What can I do for you?”

Sheepishly, Narma offered the folder. “I...had done some preliminary sketches for the project we have due at the end of the internship. I had decided to use your department for inspiration. Mrs. Cunningham had said to give it to you.”

“Ah, I see.” She gingerly took the folder, flipping through. After a moment, she nodded. “Interesting. To be honest, I’m not much of a fashion person myself, but I appreciate the craft.” She set the folder down across the counter, on top of another one. Huh, had someone else gotten the same idea? The professor gestured to it at her notice. “Yes, another girl was considering the department as well. Her plans looked sort of...futuristic? You seem to have a much more organic approach.”

Huh. Narma narrowed her eyes. “Bright red hair?”

Professor Mooringer nodded slowly. “Yes, that’s her.”

 _Agh, dammit._ Antoni. That was fine. She could scorch her. Was it even a competition, though? Hm.

The woman cleared her throat. “This looks like a solid plan. Once the designs are completed, if you could bring me photographs of the finished products, I will approve them and submit them to Valarie. Thank you...” She squinted back at the top of the folder, where her name was written. “...Narma.” She angled herself back to her microscope. “Now if only we could get these molecular strands to weave without bonding, that would be great.”

Narma’s eyes fell on the locket the woman’s hands instinctively moved back to. “That’s a very pretty necklace,” she offered. It only felt right to help the woman calm back down, after she’d made her jump so bad (though she hadn’t been loud at all. The woman must have just been the nervous type.)

Professor Mooringer’s eyes dropped to the necklace. “Oh, thank you,” she breathed softly. Her thumb moved over the simple oblong face. “My daughter gave it to me.”

 _Aw_. Narma didn’t especially like kids, but that was cute. “That’s sweet. How old is she?”

Something twinged in the Professor’s glass-green eyes, and she glanced away. She smiled wistfully, wincing at the wrinkle-lined edges of her eyes. “Ah, she...would have been seven that year. She passed away, several years ago.”

 _Oh, shit._ Narma instantly regretted that she’d brought it up. “ _Oh._ I...I’m sorry.”

The Professor shook her head softly. “No, it’s.” She stopped, didn’t say fine. Wow, Narma was actually the worst person, she regretted everything. The woman took a deep breath, “It helps, to remember her.”

Narma nodded, not trusting herself to speak and not make this worse. “I see.”

“Anyways,” the woman shook her hair out, grounding. She patted the counter. “Thank you for this. I am excited to see what you make, and just let me know as soon as you make progress.”

Narma backed up, heading for the door and out of making this woman feel terrible. “Ah, thank you, professor.”

The woman looked up at her, meeting her gaze. She tipped her head acknowledging. “Call me Erin. No reason to be formal here.”

“Right,” Narma said. “Thanks.” And then she got the hell out of there.

\--

She’d been spending so much time as Sailor Boreas it was kind of ridiculous.

Rory had wondered about this before, when she first caught on to the way her thinking shifted the second she was in uniform. Back then, she’d been worried that Sailor Boreas would subsume her, that she’d get so lost in all those tidbits of strategic and muscle memory that, eventually, she wouldn’t be her anymore.

She wasn’t sure when, but things had changed lately. Maybe it was because of the amount of time they were integrated, but it felt more like they were...working together? They were both her. She didn’t feel like Boreas was a distinct person, or anything. But switching between the two modes had become easier.

Which was good, because she was in it now.

There was a big strategy meeting for the new gang coming in, or something like it, from what she had gathered. They used codes, and so she still couldn’t one-hundred percent pin-point exactly what the big plan was, but it involved places all over the city, making exchanges with some of the city’s pre-established groups and backing others out. She was hoping this would finally give her some context.

It was an unassuming building, an old parking garage that was being gentrified, which apparently provided surprising cover for people coming ang going. From what she could see of the work notices posted around, there was a production pause when they were getting approved for some resended funding. Of course, no one just looking in from the outside would know that, so hey. Time for a party.

From a fire-escape window, she peered down into the room, pressing her ear to the glass. She hissed when it slid open with the force, but it didn’t make a noise, thank goodness.

There were a bunch of people this time, which sent a chill up her back: like twenty or third of them. Scary thing was that she knew there were more than this. She’d for sure seen some folks running around for them that weren’t here.

She listened.

“They’re not going for it,” one member said. “We’ve had three different guys make offers to them, and the last boy got shot at.”

“Sounds like they want a fight to me,” a large guy crossed his arms. He had a tattoo of a pair of dice on his bicep.

The guy beside him punched his arm. “You crazy? We don’t need to be starting shit when we’re trying to get an in here. Unless you’d like another bullet hole? Thought two was enough.”

The big guy scoffed.

C’mon, c’mon! Boreas hissed mentally. Give some specifics!

A low, even voice spoke from the opposite side of the circle. “Shark’s right. That ain’t a thing right now. If they won’t take it and East Union keeps moving this way, we’ll gank ‘em. That’s that. No need to make a scene.”

There cold in his tone gave her goosebumps. _Just like that?_ He was talking like it wasn’t going to be a problem, not even an inconvenience. What kind of firepower did these guys have?

The members murmured to one another, a couple chillingly chuckles rising in the group.

Shark, apparently, (a name! That could be something!), gestured behind himself. “...in the meantime, we can send the new boys more widespread to see if we can’t...convince them, one more time. If not, no big loss.”

“Hey,” one of the guys behind them grunted.

“He’s fooling,” another laughed shortly. “We ain’t gonna’ let them do shit, boy, no worries. They’ll be capped in two seconds if they try shit.”

Shark tilted his head towards the others. “How does that sound to you boys?”

He paced sideways, making the other half of the group more visible. Someone said something, but Rory/Boreas didn’t hear it as she got a look at guys he was addressing and her heart _stopped_.

She turned from the window, slapping a hand over her mouth to stop herself from making any noise. She almost couldn’t comprehend what she had seen, it didn’t make sense!

Heart pounding, she turned back to peer through the window—she had to have seen wrong, it was the light, or something.

As she stared, her heart sunk deeper and deeper in her chest, longer exposure not changing what she had seen.

Tyrell was standing there, his hands folded in front of himself. A stony expression held on his face like she had never seen before.

_What the hell?_

_What the hell was her brother doing there?!_


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Thanks for continuing on with this story. Do want to want you that the chronology of this chapter is a bit fucky. The first scene continues directly from the end of the last chapter, but the scene with Manuel and Narma takes place the following day after the pier attack when Narma goes to see him at the cafe. There was a line in the last chapter about the week following that having been quiet for Narma--nope! Scratch that! That shit has been retconed.
> 
> Thanks!

**Episode 10: Bad Credit, No Credit, Ghost Credit – Or, Assessing the Damage to Rebuild**

Rory’s heart pounded as she pressed herself back against the brick. There was no way. Tyrell had never been that kind of guy! Sure, he wasn’t perfect, and he slacked on his classwork sometimes, but he would never get mixed up in this kind of stuff. The thought of the pistol at his side made her want to throw up. She had to say something.

She kept listening in, and noted a few of the street names she heard mentioned as places to check out later. Otherwise, she couldn’t stop her attention from drifting back to Tyrell. He looked so stony. What was he thinking about? What was he even doing in the city, he was supposed to be off at college!

Although, they were out of session now. How long had this been going on?

As the night drew later, they disbursed. Sailor Boreas dashed low along the rooftops, staying off her heels to minimize the noise, and she followed her brother out of there.

She followed him for almost ten minutes as he walked along with another member. For a second, she was worried they were going to stay in groups the whole time, until finally Tyrell broke off and began to walk by himself.

The moment he entered an empty alley, she dropped, her heels clacking sharply on the cement. He whipped around, freezing when he saw her in the darkness. “Yo. You’re that girl! Holy shit, I thought they were lying.”

The words took her by surprise for a second, before she realized he would be seeing her as Sailor Boreas. All the gang knew was that she had attacked a group of them before. He probably thought she was going to attack him. That hurt in a strange way, but maybe she could use this to her advantage.

She took a breath, making sure to lower her voice as to most obscure it. If anyone was going to hear her and know it was her, it was Tyrell. “That’s right. I’m a guardian of Seattle, and you’ve got some explaining to do.” She stepped forward, trying to look as intimidating as possible.

He tensed, backing up. “Whoa, whoa, hold it!”

“Are you affiliated with the gang that’s infesting this city?” Unnecessary question; she knew he was. But maybe this would get him to talk about why he was messing around with them.

He waved his hands in front of himself, before dropping them. “Man, no way!”

“That’s a lie,” she said, but her heart jolted as she noticed his hand hovering near the gun. He...wouldn’t shoot her, right?

Of course, he didn’t know it was her.

He took her approach as a threat, and it was supposed to be, a little bit. But she wasn’t expecting him to blurt out, “No, listen, you don’t want to do this, man, you got the wrong guy.”

“Doubt it.” She gestured to the gun, scepter now in hand, Her heart pounded. “Now, don’t do anything stupid. I could take you down before you even drew.” She hoped he couldn’t tell that she was bluffing.

He swore. “Shit. Look, I’m telling you, you don’t want to turn me in.” He eyed up and down the alley with a sense of visceral paranoia. He hissed, “Look, I can’t say anything here. Get me out of this alley, and I can prove to you I’m clean.” He jittered, wiping a hand over his shaven scalp.

Rory’s brow furrowed. Now, what the heck did that mean? Uneasily, she leaned away before nodding. “...fine.” Keeping one eye on her brother, she glanced around to the area outside the alley. Her eyes landed on an old dilapidated minimart nearby. “There.” She nodded towards it. “After you.” She hated that she didn’t feel safe enough to walk in front.

They found a spot in the back room of the old store, which was apparently unlocked. It was disheartening, to wonder how he knew that. Still...man, if there was any chance he wasn’t a freaking gangbanger, she wanted to chase that lead.

As they moved inside, Tyrell let out a breath she didn’t realize he’d been holding. Uttering into the musty atmosphere, he hissed, ”Jesus Christ. Okay, listen: I’m working for the police.”

Rory stopped. Was...was that true? She wanted to say it made more sense than him being involved with the gang, but it really didn’t make a lot of sense either. She narrowed her eyes. “Since _when_?”

He stopped panicking, seemingly caught off guard by the question. “Since...when? Uh.”

She realized that was kind of an off question to be asking, if they were strangers. She cleared her throat, and tried to make it sound more natural. “When did you get involved with the police? I’m going to need more proof than just your word.”

Tyrell sighed. “Look, a couple of months ago I was hanging out with some guys from school, just watching the game, right? And this guy suggested we make a bet. No big deal, but we were kind of drunk, and I got cocky. The betting pool just kept getting bigger and by the end, I was so sure we were going to win, I threw in the money I had reserved for the next semester. The guy took it.” He sighed, scratching at the back of his neck. “They pulled out ten shots in the last quarter. I don’t know how he knew, but I lost the bet. It was stupid—I had a part-time job, but no way was I making that back in time for classes in August. I needed a way to get money fast.

My roomate’s pops is a cop, and he told me they were looking for informants, and they were willing to pay big. I...took the job. I knew it was dangerous, but I didn’t know how I was going to explain to my mom I lost the money making the bet. She’s already struggling as it is.”

Rory didn’t know what to say. She knew she had to keep up her face, though she wanted to yell at him for doing something so stupid, for putting himself in danger and getting mixed up in this stuff when he never had before. But she bit her tongue. Instead, she forced out, “So you plan to leave.”

His face darkened, and he turned. The light from an upper window cut down through the room, catching his shoulder but leaving his eyes hidden. “I was going to,” he said, and Boreas’s stomach churned; “but then I found out these guys were heading for Seattle right about the time that school let out. I couldn’t just let them bring this shit back home. Not that Seattle’s ever been gang-free, not by a long shot, but there’s a ton of these guys.” He lifted his head, staring back to her with determination. “I can’t let them fuck up my city. And they got big plans coming up; I _know_ if I could just have more time I’ll be able to give the police something they can use, and this won’t be for nothing.”

Okay, she hated this. She understood where he was coming from—heck, it reflected her own reasoning almost perfectly; they must have had the same reckless gene. But she didn’t want to think about all the ways his plan could go wrong. At least she was in disguise! Slumping, she crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m been trying to look into the big plan too.”

He clenched his fist. “Look, you can’t rat me out or take me in or whatever. I need more time. And I don’t trust the cops to believe me when I say I got snatched up by some super hero just for listening in for them.” He straightened. “Hey, maybe I can even pass on what I know to you. No reason the cops have to get the first bite. The more people working against these freaks, the more likely we can take them in.”

_Man!_ He had a point. Having someone on the inside would be super valuable, even though she would have wanted it to be anyone but her own brother. As a night bird swept past the window overhead, she asked him, “So what is this big plan, anyways?”

His gaze flicked throughout the room nervously, as though he was expecting something to suddenly emerge from the shadows. “...how much do you know about arms deals?”

\--

Narma had never worked on something with such decisiveness and fervor, and that may have been because it was turning out to be a rough, rough week.

Tensions with Manuel had gotten worse and worse as the week progressed, and she wasn’t sure why. This was mostly because the conversation where she’d turned up at his workplace hadn’t gone well, to say the least.

The moment she’d stepped in the door and seen him scrubbing determinedly at a glass, mouth pulled into a frown, she knew he was in a bad mood. As the bell rung over her head, her chest still heaving with the speed she’d come there, he looked up. He met her eyes—his soulful, hard—and immediately looked away, back to his glass. Mentally, she faltered, taken aback by his coldness. That had to be the cleanest glass in Seattle, at his scrubbing intensity. With an unfamiliar nervousness, she paused before approaching the counter. “Hey.”

He pursed his lips, paused scrubbing. “...hey.” Continued abusing the glass.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she began, but he didn’t soften. She waited for a response, but he said nothing. A knot of discomfort twisted in her chest—she wasn’t used to being ignored. “Hey, come on, talk to me. I thought we were going to talk.”

Manuel took a breath. “If we do, are you going to tell the truth?”

Narma inhaled sharply, heart dropping into her chest. “You think I’m lying?” The awful thing was, she was. But how did she know he was? She didn’t like lying to him any more than he appreciated being lied to, but still! It’s not as though she could tell him. “Look, I’m sorry about the phone thing, I should have called—” she felt like a broken record, and she abruptly cut herself off. This was getting her nowhere. She flipped over the tips of her numb fingers, showing them the blackened nailbeds. “Look, I got shocked, see? I’m telling the truth.” She knew she must have sounded crazy to the woman coming up behind her to the counter, but she didn’t care.

When Manuel saw her nails, his hard expression dropped, and he sighed before turning to the customer. “...I have a break in eighteen minutes. Find somewhere to sit down and...we’ll talk.”

The table in the corner was free. It felt stupidly large without all of her other friends around her, and she felt small and childish sitting there. Time seemed to drag on with her just sitting there, and she fidgeted with the leg of her salwar pant. Finally, after 22 minutes a blond girl took Manuel’s spot at the counter and he made his way over, removing his apron on the way.

Her heart locked up. Yeesh! Get it together! If she could have slapped herself she would have. Just talk to him! There were no drinks between them—weird, but it also seemed to cast an omen of her not staying long. “Manuel. Why did you say that? I know I messed up, but...”

He sighed, folding his hands together. “Narma, I _saw_ you run out the door back at the giftshop.”

Narma inhaled sharply, body gone tense.

“Did you think I was just going to let you run out into danger by yourself? I went to go after you, and I saw you run out the door. You didn’t stop. You didn’t check the phone. You just left.” He lifted his eyes. “From my point of view, you just ditched me.”

“ _No_ ,” she denied immediately.

“I really want to believe that’s not what happened,” she snapped her mouth shut as he kept going, “but you lying about it doesn’t help.”

Oh, fuck. How was she supposed to respond to that? What reasonable explanation could she give? Everything else she’d told him was basically true, but without that one little detail, everything else seemed a lot more dubious. She swallowed. She tried to think—what could she tell him? What lie would patch this up but, as she thought about it, the more the thought made her feel sick. Like she’d swallowed hard oil.

“Manuel,” she started, and she couldn’t believe her freaking eyes were watering, if she weren’t mortified enough. “I want you to understand—I swear I wasn’t trying to ditch you.” Ugh, this was terrible, and she really liked him. She’d mentally been making plans to go out on the sea at night with him, to see the stars together on his uncle’s stupid boat. She leaned across the table, placing a hand near his, but he didn’t move to take it. “And I know this is going to sound terrible, but I...” She swallowed. “I...can’t... tell you.”

Suddenly, he straightened, brows flying upward. “You can’t _tell_ me?” He sounded incredulous, and hurt. “Wow, okay, that’s definitely not what I thought you were going to say. What does that mean, _you can’t tell me?_ You can’t tell me why you ditched me when there was a monster running around, or what? I waited in that backroom after I saw you leave because I was _hoping_ you would come back, because it was _too dangerous_ to go out. But you were just gone. I didn’t know _what_ the hell had happened to you!”

Her pulse thudded—he’d never sworn at her before. For some reason, it made her think of her father, even though he was a man who never swore. She struck the table with the side of her hand. “Everything else I told you was true. I got shocked, I went home, I passed out. I was going to come back to the gift shop!”

“But you didn’t,” he said, eyes piercing. “Why?”

She bit her lip.

His shoulders slummed. “You ‘can’t tell me.’”

She watched him run a hand through his hair. “I swear, there’s a good reason. I just...can’t tell you right now.”

His head lifted. “Not _now_. What about _later_? Will you _eventually_?” The yellow-orange lights of the café set his curls on fire at the edges.

She folded her hands in her lap, picking at the plum polish. “...Maybe not ever,” she confessed. “I don’t know.”

He closed his eyes. “...Narma, what am I supposed to do with that? Just go on, like nothing happened?”

“...trust me?”

Her heart sunk as Manuel’s eyes avoided her. “...I need some time to think. I like you, Narma, but if you’ve got some kind of dark secret...I don’t know if I’m ready to sign up for that. Maybe that’s a little hypocritical of me. I’m not the most open guy in the world. But I can’t even imagine what a good reason might look like here.”

Defeated, he sent her home with a murmured please for her to see a doctor about her fingers. So now, she was working like a mad woman to get these dresses done.

[NA]: So basically, I fucked up and Manuel hates me.

[RW]: :( He doesn’t hate you! He just doesn’t understand.

[CR]: Just give him some time. He’ll come around.

She had doubts. She tucked the needle under the next flower. She didn’t usually use appliques, but she liked the contrast of the darker color with the nude tone of the dress, so she had committed to a lot of hand-sewing.

The designs, once she had found her inspiration, were somewhat different than her usual style. Maybe this was because she was subconsciously designing with the other girl’s styles in mind, but only her own had the sari-inspired neckline common in the dresses she’d made in the past. Still, she seemed to be on it pumping them out in plenty of time.

[NA]: BTW, Carmen, the dresses are coming along. I need you guys to stop by sometime over the next week or so to fit

[CR]: !! That’s really fast!

[NA]: yeah this is my therapy right now tbh

[CA]: By the way, do you guys mind if I invite Gwen and her sister? I’ll let them know they would have to get their own dresses, of course, Narma, I wouldn’t throw that on you.

[NA]; eh, well, let me check my productivity, I might actually have time

[NA]: But nah, I don’t care

[RW]: I’m cool with it too! Might be cool to hang out with them a little, we need to do more to integrate them with the group.

[NA]: If you say so.

[CR]: Oh, by the way.

Carmen Rodriguez [locked] up-scrolling for joining members.

[CR]: We should absolutely not go to the haunted house thing.

\--

The interns were like ghosts as they moved through the building—like stray photons. Erin was never sure how to interact with them, In a way, it was heartening to see so many young people running around, but at the same time she felt her own age as an odd transitionary stage between when she was more like them and...after.

She pulled the sample free from the microscope as her team shuffled about around her. “Yes,” she said, examining the bond again, “I think we’ve made some progress.”

Newman shuffled up behind her, hovering. “The bond only lasts twenty to thirty minutes, but that’s way better than it was doing. It’s improved by a factor of two.”

She nodded. “Good work. We’ll have to pass the news on to Hester and Wu when they come in in the morning. For now, I think we’re about ready to call it a night.”

One of the newer assistants, Florence, leaned back against the corner. “Don’t you get tired of working nights, Professor Mooringer? You should get one of the others to switch out for you sometime. Have some time to yourself.”

Erin suppressed a wry smile. A kind thought, but if she only knew just how much time she had ‘to herself.’ Nights alone in the silence of her business apartment were the last thing she wanted to face. Better to work until she passed out, perhaps make some progress. “I appreciate the night’s calm,” she said instead. “It’s sweet of you to be concerned. You all should head home, get some rest. This breakthrough only means we’ll have to work harder in the morning.”

The rest of the team began to disease, though Newman lingered behind. “Professor,” he murmured, lowering his voice. “I was wondering if you had an updates on the...ah. Other? Project?”

“Not yet,” she shut him down, the man’s rocking toes slapping flat to the tile. “We’ve reached a bit of a roadblock in the research. I will let you know if I need your expertise again.”

“O-oh.” Newman glanced away, hands stuffed in his lab coat pockets. “I see. Well, keep me posted, I guess.”

“I certainly will. Thank you again, Oscar.”

Newman brightened—merely from a lack of formality? Curious, perhaps a bit endearing. “Of course! It’s exciting work. Have a good night, Professor Mooringer.”

The lab cleared out, finally silent. Erin sighed, gathering up the last of her clipboards. Taking the steps, she descended down into the Institute’s basement, where the old security room-cum-laboratory sat unassuming at the end of the hall. Her heels clicked as she made her way down, pulling the keyring from her pocket and unlocking the door.

“Certainly took your time,” her Benefactor scoffed, re-purposed screens of the old security system flickering immediately to life.

“It was a progressive day,” Professor Mooringer laid down the clipboards, immediately firing up the test module on another screen and consulting the read-outs on her desk. She glanced back and forth between them, and swore. “Dammit.”

“What?” The other woman stared through the screen, lips pursed. It was a mutual source of frustration that she couldn’t transmit the tests over in real-time.

“It’s not re-stabilizing,” Erin sighed, running a hand through her hair. “Whatever scrambled it’s ions at the pier left its components too disparate to recover. Specimen 1 is compromised. And after all that work graphing its genetic code with specimen 2, that had eliminated so many of its weaknesses...”

Specimen 2 was heavier-hitting, more efficient to operate, but it’s energy collection just didn’t compare. There had yet to be a collection as successful as the first on the bridge. A pit sat in her stomach.

Regardless, she knew it wouldn’t be enough. Without that artifact and whatever composition it possessed which generated such exponential energy, there was no chance they would be able to send it back far enough.

Her ‘Benefactor’ shook her head, pushing up her glasses. “This isn’t working. We can’t just keep sending our creations out and hoping it will suddenly turn up. If we know the identities of the Soldiers in your time, we can hunt them down and find the artifact.”

Erin brought her arms around herself, one hand fiddling with Emma’s memento. She laughed, shortly. “’We can hunt them down?’ How do you expect me to do that? If you haven’t noticed, I don’t especially cut the most intimidating figure. And they won’t just give it to us; not after what we’ve done.” She swallowed. “What _I’ve_ done.”

“’What _we’ve_ done,’” the woman on the screen assessed finally. Erin turned to her. She looked...uncomfortable, the wrinkles beside her eyes even more pronounced. “That’s not a burden you should take on to yourself alone, it was a mutual decision.” She turned her eyes away from the screen. “You shouldn’t have to carry that.”

Erin laughed wetly, eyes stinging. Slamming a hand on the counter-top to steady herself, she bit out, _“Well what exactly is the difference?”_ She wheezed—her chest was feeling tight, clinical signs of a panic attack, not good. She tried to inhale, and shouted, _“_ If you haven’t noticed, _we’re both me!”_

How many people had she killed? How many _other_ families had she _destroyed_ because she could have done things better, took it too far, wasted time hoping things would change when in reality she was just taking more collateral damage, destruction in her wake as she just kept failing again, and again, and again, and again—

Black invaded the edges of her vision, blurring the image of her own face staring back at her with pity from the screen. She couldn’t get air in, oh God she was dying, she was dying, she couldn’t breathe.

At some point, she ended up on the floor, and she could just hear her future self’s voice fading woosily in and out. “—is why, Erin. We both know you can’t handle this on your own. And you don’t have to. _You don’t have to be alone_ , can you hear me?” The strained simulacrum of her voice pandered out soothingly to her from the screen, so gentle, like trying not to scare an animal. “Whatever consequences there are, I am happy to take them later on. For now, you can’t afford to break down like this, now, name five things you can see.”

Her vision fought the prickling edges. ”...the floor?”

“Okay?”

“The—my shoes. The cabinets.” She brought her hands away from her head. “My hands. The-the console.”

“Four things you can hear?”

Her Benefactor took her through the exercise—3 things she can smell (antiseptic, electricity, detergent,) 2 things she can feel (her sweater, the tile,) 1 she can taste (stale coffee.) Eventually, she was just sitting on the floor with full awareness, if not an aching chest. She didn’t feel better, but at least she could get up.

The other woman kept talking at her as she wiped her eyes. “We just have to push through the unpleasant parts, and will have all been worth it. You owe it to her— _we_ owe it to her.” Her voice tightened. “She should have had a long, happy life.”

Erin pursed her lips. “She should be back by now.”

Her benefactor’s voice floated past her, admonishing. “You know our influences are only reflected in real time.”

“Originally,” Future!Erin coaxed her through the feed as she rose to her feet, still unsteady, “the plan was to pinpoint their approximate location based on the Specimen’s tracking abilities. Do we have any new information?”

Current!Erin took a breath, trying to steady herself. “I can only guess that Specimen 1’s tracking had become refined enough to locate a single party, as the Soldiers weren’t even mentioned by the media during the attack at the pier. But something happened to it. At least one of them was there.” Erin’s gaze passed over the new locations the creatures had spawned in at, searching for anything, anything that might indicate a common origin point. “So many of these locations are all over the city, in public places, which make them practically useless to us—hm.”

“What is it?” Future!Erin encouraged. “Tell me.”

“That bus. Not the first one, but the second one—the mass cluster of energy signatures we sent both 1 _and_ 2 out for. It wasn’t a city bus, it was a private charter. And it was coming _in_. I didn’t recognize the company when we first compared notes, but...”

Oh, this...Erin’s heart pounded. This could be vital. If they could find out who the bus was chartered out for, then maybe...

“We need to know where that bus was coming from. What’s their number?”

Hands shaking, Erin scrambled to her desk and pulled out a phone book. The company had two offices in the city—they closed in five minutes.

Retrieving her phone from her pocket, she dialed in the first number and waited as the dial tone hissed back at her. She jumped as voice came on the line. “Seattle Charter Bus Company, how can I help you?”

“Hello,” she shouted. “Sorry, I know it’s late. I was hoping to get some information about the bus accident at the beginning of the month.”

The man sighed. “Look, the company is not accepting media inquiries at this time.”

“No! No, I’m not the media. I—” she had to come up with a compelling reason—her fingers paused on the locket. “My...my daughter. I know she was taking a trip with your company, but she didn’t tell me exactly when she was leaving; I just saw this, and I haven’t been able to get ahold of her. I just need to know who booked that bus, please.”

The line was silent. There was a part of her that felt awful about the lie, like she was _using_ Emma’s memory. But this—this was all for her anyways, it had to be, it was really more like she was _helping_ her, to find out what she needed. She would understand, wouldn’t she? _God, please, please._

The man made a disgruntled noise. “Okay, okay, hold on.”

Erin brought her hand to her mouth, the sound of shuffling papers coming through the line.

After a moment, the man came back. “Okay, it looks like that bus was rented out to a ‘Seattle Summer Athletics Camp.’ Does that help?”

A camp? A _camp!_ “Oh, my gosh, yes, thank you. Have a good night.” She disconnected. She whipped around to face her future self.

“What did they say?”

“ _It was a camp_. A summer camp.”

The Benefactor clasped her hands. “There, see?” She sounded breathless, identical glass-green eyes glittering with anticipation. “A camp. Erin, this narrows the possibilities down so much. This could be exactly what we needed.”

When she got home, she searched the camp on her computer. There was a phone number, but they were only open 8-5. There was, however, an email—she typed up an inquiry and hit _send._

Her heart was full of an anxious hope.

Perhaps she could hunt them down, after all.

\--

The last week of June crept up before Mallory expected it. Mostly, she had been stuck working out the logistics of getting up to Mt. Si, what bus routes ran up that way, how to get permission to visit (read: break into) the old Miller house without attracting the attention of the police. What equipment she had to pack. It feel like an anachronism to reach out to her old contact to rent out some of the pieces she couldn’t afford herself, letting herself into his seedy basement through the window and pass over the money from the house card like some kind of black market deal. It put her mind in a weird state, as if she were inhabiting a body that didn’t fit her anymore, from the time before she’d met the others where she didn’t really have friends, only contacts—kind of like a ghost. Fantastic.

Still, it felt weird as hell.

She was grateful that the creatures seemed to have held off, at least. Narma’s mono-e-mono showdown with Spindly Legs the Greater seemed to have put a chink in whatever system had thrown the cryptids out, girl was an absolute legend, 10/10, and that had afforded them a break. Now if only they could find something useful in the meanwhile.

She was looking forward to stepping away from the city for a while, to be honest. While camping wasn’t necessarily her thing, tracking monsters definitely was, and being able to entrench herself in something that might not actively want to kill her was going to be a nice change.

And then everybody pulled this bullshit.

[CR]: Oh, geez, you know, all these chores just came up I have to take care of for the party, it’s really too bad about the timing

[MD]: You’re joking. This has been in production for weeks, Carmen, come on.

[RW]: Yeah, actually, now is kind of a bad time for me too? Some stuff just came up

[RW]: like, for real :/

[MD]: Is this a coup?

[NA]: Oh wait Oh nooo was that tomorrow? You know I might have volunteered to put in some extra hours at the internship on tomorrow’s exact night that I am now obligated to attend oh nooooo

[CR]: Narma >:/

[MD]: Okay, so is seriously no one is going to come tomorrow? I’ve put time in on this guys

[MD]: Fine, I guess I have to reschedule

[CR]: No, no! You should go! Like you said, you’ve already planned this out so well. And besides, this was meant to be like a training session for the new members, right? Less people just means one-on-one!

[MD]: ...let it be said I am narrowing my eyes to a never-before seen angle

[MD]: so thin, as to be the opposite of an angle

[MD]: then nega-angle

[CR]: acknowledged, lieutenant.

[NA]: suck up

[MD]: ...damn. Playing to my one weakness: logic

[MD:] and my other one weakness, military jargon.

[MD]: while I can’t have but feel this is a bit of a betrayal, I already have arrangements made, and running the new recruits through some investigative tactics could still be beneficial, so.

[MD]: guess I’m walking to the bus stop by myself tomorrow, like an asshole

A bit of a change from what she had intended, but she was nothing if not adaptable. So the next morning, she trudged to the bus stop with her backpack full of heavy yet delicate equipment. As she approached, the morning light seeped muggily into the sky, and she cleared the hill to see a single figure standing at the stop.

She slowed, the figure in the distance turning to look at her. A frown pulled at her lip as she neared. With a suddenly clarity, she understood the con. “Let me guess,” she said flatly, Gwen examining her over-stuffed backpack with sympathetic eyes. “Your sister’s not coming.”

“Nope,” Gwen chirped back commiseratively.

Mallory forcefully tugged her phone from her pocket.

I’ve been hoodwinked

I’ve been swindled and perched

Carmen responded immediately. She must have just been _waiting_ for the call.

Please don’t be mad! You guys really need to talk.

You’re a devious woman and I can never trust again

How did you even know it was just going to be Gwen?

Sylvia.

Dammit. Mallory should have realized.

...do you want us to come up there?

I can grab Narma, at least. Rory seems to actually have something going on.

She considered it. Going on this trip alone with Gwen was never something she would have agreed to. But.

She glanced over to the other girl, who was not-so-subtly watching her from the corner of her eye.

...the actually did need to talk, in reality. And she could appreciate the outcome of a well-laid scheme, if nothing else.

...Nah. We’re good. Would be cool if you could pick us

up tomorrow; the bus schedule sucks.

You’ve got it!

Try to have fun! ^o^

Okay. Now, if she could just muster the balls enough to actually talk to her, that would be great.

She inhaled, hiding her phone in her pocket again, never to be acknowledged again ever. “So. I supposed we’ll be undertaking this together.”

“Seems like.” She seemed to have an affinity for over wear, because again in the midst of summer she had a salmon-pink North Face jacket pulled over her shoulders in the misty morning. It was a similar color, actually, to the color of her uniform pleats, though without the fuchsia-bright tone of the accents. Had she bought it after? Or many she just knew the color complimented her eyes. At least the cosmic forces they were at the mercy of seemed bound to make them look good in the heat of battle.

Ugh, this was distracting.

She brought her eyes up, and nearly jumped as Gwen smirked back to her, where she had been, whoops, staring. She turned to the road, hefting her backpack to the ground. “I suppose we’ll have to make the most of it then.”

As she was nothing if not punctual, the bus pulled up just about then and they climbed on, Mallory paying one less fare than she had anticipated. She supposed that was one positive.

She took the seat across from Gwen, sprawling out as she stuffed her supplies beside the seat.

Gwen snorted at her, amused. “What, am ‘too dangerous to be around?” She smiled, light-hearted, but Mallory just couldn’t quite do it. There were...too many unknown factors. She didn’t know how to feel.

“Maybe,” she said, and Gwen went quiet.

The bus ride was kind of excruciating. She kept running in circles with herself about what she wanted to do—did she want to interrogate her just to be sure, really sure, she was actually on their side? Did she want to keep this professional? Did she want to spend the time breaking down her process the way she had always imagined she would, maybe with an audience someday, when she’d monologued to herself in times before as she walked through the woods alone?

Did she want to ask Gwen what she wanted, how she was feeling about the new things she’d discovered? She’d been nonchalant about it herself, but not everyone would. She spent so much time conflicted that she ended up not saying anything at all. They spent the ride in silence.

\--

Okay, she had to do something about this.

Her supposed sensei was sulking from the other side of the bus until they were barely a mile out from their stop in the woods (according to Mapquest, at least.) Gwen had thought this was be a fun albeit reluctant learning experience, and possibly a route for making progress with her new mentor, but the other girl was so shut up in herself she was worried she was about to spend ten hours with a cute, disgruntled rock. This just wasn’t the thing.

“So,” she finally shuffled out to the end of her seat as the bus turned off the interstate (honestly, she still wasn’t totally thrilled about being on a bus.) She leaned toward, trying to look as charismatic as possible. Time to channel Laura Croft. “So. What’s the plan?”

Success—Mallory raised her eyes from the notebook in her lap. “What?”

“The plan.” Gwen quirked a brow. “You _do_ have a plan, don’t you?”

Mallory blinked behind her glasses, before irritation twisted on her face. Ah, there it was—she had to admit, there was a small thrill in riling her up. “Of course I do,” she groused. Huffing, she closed the notebook with a snap, shoving it away, “Once we get the to station, it’s going to be a 2 hour hike up to the Miller house. We’re going to start tracking as we near the site, in case of sporadic energy. We’re going to be spending most of the evening in the house, though. We need to check if there actually is any evidence of supernatural activity.”

A two hour hike—not exactly what she had been expecting. “And here I thought you weren’t the outdoorsy type.”

“I’m a ghost type,” Mallory said without missing a beat, face totally straight.

They swayed as the bus came to a stop, and after stopping off at the mountain’s ranger station for one last chance at civilization, they set out into the woods.

Admittedly, it was a sort of eerie atmosphere. Technically, it was still morning when they left from the station, a few minutes before the pivotal transition into noon. Still, the sky was spread thin with wispy gray clouds like shrouds, and even in the middle of the summer the forest felt dead.

In front of her, Mallory had pulled out a device with some kind of low-to-high meter, two little antenna sticking outwards in front of her. She moved with purpose, crunching over uneven, rocky soil without watching her feet as though she had walked this same path a thousand times. She grumbled under her breath as she fidgeted with the dials, hunched into her de-shouldered coat like ghoul.

She didn’t look like she was getting much of anywhere with her device. Perhaps she wouldn’t mind a conversation. “So. How did you get into...” Gwen gestured to the forest around them, teaming with small animal sounds, “...this?”

Mallory frowned at the device. “It’s not an exciting story.” After a moment of turning the thing back and forth, she tugged her backpack off and stuffed it back inside before slinging it back over her shoulder.

Gwen shrugged, encouraged when Mallory glanced back to her. “Mm, I’ll be the judge,”

Mallory ticked her head to the side—from her position a few feet behind, she could see the girl’s eyes take on a far-away look. “Well, there were some folks online—posted videos of themselves going out to track this creature in the woods. They were _totally shit_ at it; I saw the video and immediately knew they hadn’t found anything. So I started thinking about all the ways they could have done it better—at lunch, trying to do schoolwork, lying in bed at night. I guess I got a little obsessed about it.” Mallory’s fingers came up to scratch at the nape of her neck. She seemed uncomfortable to admit it.

Gwen watched her, curious. Mallory seemed at least a little aware that that was a trait she had, then—the obsessiveness. Gwen was honestly a little surprised at that observation. Given Mallory’s prior behavior, her first expectation would have been for her to justify it to herself, make it seem necessary or more reasonable than it came off to be. But she didn’t.

She was slightly taken aback. Maybe Mallory was more self-aware than she had given her credit for.

The girl sighed, brushing her hair back. “Eventually, I got so frustrated about it that I started complaining to my roommate about it. Finally, he said, _“Then why don’t you just do it yourself?”_ And I was like, ‘You know what? I will.’”

Huh. Gwen sped up a bit to come to Mallory’s side—easier to talk that way. “Did you find anything?”

She snorted. “No. Despite all the thought I had put into it, I still didn’t know what I was doing.” She took a deep breath. “But it was a learning experience. The next time I went out, I knew more, and I got better results.”

Gwen didn’t know if she should ask, but she couldn’t help herself. “Have you gotten anything?”

Mallory turned to look at her flatly, raising a brow over her shades. “Of course. I have a series of proof recordings—just small things, for now, until I can find a contact with better equipment for rent. Larry’s always good on short notice, but his stuff is kind of shit.”

Just as quickly, she was tromping on ahead, the surprisingly speedy pace she’d been maintaining before.

Gwen stuck her hands in her pockets. “I’d like to see them sometime,” she suggested, but Mallory was quiet.

A few minutes later, Mallory checked something from her bag before pulling out a device with a series of lights, and a gray pouch. “Okay. Give me your cell phone.”

“Okay?” Reaching into her pocket, Gwen passed it over only for Mallory to drop it into the pouch. Her own joined it. “What is that?”

“This,” she said, “is a Faraday bag. Blocks electronic signals.” She sealed the little pouch, and then lifted the device turning it on. It emitted a faint hum, but was otherwise quiet. “This is an EMF. It picks up on electronic signals in the environment. Cellphones can cause false readings, so we have to block them while we’re using them. We’re about half a mile out from the house, so now’s a good time to start checking for anything out of the ordinary.”

“I think I’ve heard of those before.” EMF—she had seen a Ghost Hunters once or twice in her time, so that might have been where. “So the...poltergeist. It might give off electronic signals?”

“It should,” Mallory narrowed her eyes as she moved the device left to right as they moved through the woods. “Any sort of post-humous apparition would be manifesting some sort of electromagnetic field. If we even get a ping here in the middle of the woods, that will give us a starting point.” Her eyes scanned the area methodically. She indicated out with the device. “That’s not the only thing, of course. Like anything, you want to be aware of patterns as you are examining the area. Anything unusual—tire tracks or foot prints where there shouldn’t be, broken foliage, stairs that go nowhere, designs that make no sense—could be an indication that something else is going on.” She raised her eyes from the device, her other hand passing it back and forth in front of her. She peered over to her. “That’s not just for ghosts.”

She got what she meant—this was supposed to be the general investigation advice, now. She snickered, realizing what the other girl’s diatribe had reminded her of. “ _You_ should come teach at the camp,” she teased.

Mallory shook her head, but, hey! That was definitely a hint of a smile at the corner of her lips. “Bear Grylls, eat your heart out.”

Gwen couldn’t restrain the way her mood lifted, grinning broadly.

The rocks shifted beneath her feet, and she maneuvered to keep from tripping as the lightness began to fade. “...we are teammates, now, you know,” she offered. “You can ask me some questions.”

It was just such a dramatic difference from before, Mallory always on her for information. It was kind of flattering. Now, though, she could tell something was off.

Mallory let out a soft hm at the device gave a statically little whirr. She gestured her over to the right, Gwen following.

Indulging the ghost shtick, Gwen peered around the area, looking for anything weird. No foot prints, no flying sheets or spooky noises. Just a ringing in her ears from the forests quiet, and the shrill cawing of crows above. Personally, she didn’t really buy the ghost thing, but apparently Mallory put a lot of stock in it, so no reason to go and say something insulting.

“I feel stupid about it.”

The words came out of nowhere, and Gwen turned to see Mallory scowling into the dirt, kicking aside some wet leaves obscuring the path. “...about what?” She asked softly, though she had a guess, no doubt.

Mallory straightened sharply, her trench coat billowing out at her feet. She pushed her glasses up, the light’s glace obscuring her eyes. The EMF hung limply in her hand. “I’m sorry,” she said, “about harassing you like a maniac before. Like I knew something. Turns out, I was so off-base I was practically committing friendly fire.” She pursed her lips, glancing away as she continued her scan. “So, yeah. Turns out I’m an idiot. Sorry.”

Okay, that was...Gwen frowned. She was being awfully hard on herself, wasn’t she?

She leaned forward, trying to catch Mallory’s eyes behind her shades as they trudged onward. That didn’t work, so she just decided to speak up anyways. “...you did what you felt like you needed to to protect the ones you care about. I admire that, even though I’ll admit, I questioned your methods at times.”

She tried to sound humored, to show her how not a big deal it was, but she had no way of knowing if the other girl was actually listening to her or not. And it wasn’t as though she had been entirely forthcoming herself, either.

“We _both_ had to hide the truth for different reasons, because we had no way of knowing who we could trust.” She raised one hand. “Now that we know we’re on the same team, though, we can pool our resources.”

“Do we know that, though?

Gwen stopped at that. Narrowing her eyes, she backtracked through what she had said to try and figure out what she was asking. _Now that we know we’re on the same team..._

_Ow, okay._ So, fair. The other girl had said something similar earlier. She wasn’t sure what more she could do to prove herself, though. Unsettled, she said, “I kind of though the magical powers thing sort of verified my affiliation.”

Mallory sighed, hard. “I’m sorry. I’m trying to accept that you guys are with us, but I can’t make the paranoia shut up. I got so used to thinking of you as someone I had to defend against. Maybe that wasn’t fair.”

This was a surprising amount of honestly. Hey, maybe they weren’t backtracking after all. Maybe they’d just hit the rough terrain. “Well,” she shrugged casually, “I guess you’ll just have to keep interrogating me to make sure.” She placed a hand to her chin as Mallory turned. To look at her.

Slowly, Mallory smirked wryly. “...the transmission,” she said, and it took Gwen a second to realize she was asking about the motel. “of you two. What was in the background? Do you remember what it looked like?”

“It was white,” she replied easily, stuffing her hands back in her pockets. “Bright white. Like there was a spotlight shining from behind us.”

Mallory’s pale brown eyes burned with curiosity.

Maybe they were getting somewhere with this, after all.

\--

With the extra time Mallory gave them to survey the area around the site, they arrive to old Miller house at approximately 3 o’clock.

It’s standard material. Big, creepy house. The shutters seem to be hanging on with twine and the paint is pealing so dramatically it could have been mistaken for a work of impressionist art—all those brush strokes. Van Goyt style. Probably just as well; cranberry windows was a mistake, Helen, now your house looks like a murder party.

Which is exactly what it was supposed to be.

“So this is it?”

Mallory peered over to see Gwen staring up at the withered structure. “Yup. Supposed trio of dead people just loitering all over the place like freaking pieces of garbage.” Mm, maybe not the best impression to make, starting off. She clarified, “I’m bullshitting. Don’t ever say shit like I just did while you’re in a house.” Walking up to the house, she slung her bag more securely over her shoulder and climbing up to the door. “Okay, time to do the B&E.”

Gwen furrowed her brows, looking more cautious. “...really?”

“No, we have a key.” She reached under the wilted flower pot to pull out the key the ranger had left there. “Sorry. I tend to talk shit when I’m getting ready to hit a sight. Helps me get in the right vibe.”

Gwen leaned against the frame, watching her fiddle with the lock. “And what is the vibe?”

Mallory finally got the worn key to work, and the lock turned. “Like I can handle whatever’s in there.” The statement hung in the air as the house’s door swung up with the squeak. She tossed the key over to Gwen, who caught it gracelessly in the air. “Confidence is key.”

The place was just as worn down as Mallory had expected—of course, she had been in houses like this dozens of times. The first few times, she had snuck in, which had earned her a bit of a reputation with the local police. Nowadays, she always tried to get some kind of clearance first. Which she wasn’t engaging in minor Crimes in the pursuit of knowledge, she tried to stay above the board with low-stakes investigations like this. Plus, she wasn’t sure Gwen would appreciate a misdemeanor when she was trying to stay out of the attention of the police.

...she’d been so sure she’d be angry at her.

“So,” Gwen took a deep breath—a risky move, as the room was so coated in dead skin cells it was surprising they didn’t pay their own taxes—and turned to her with a raised brow. “So, is this the part where I get to see the pro at work?”

Mallory snorted. “What go you think you’ve been doing?” Gwen leaned against the couch as she carefully removed each of her remaining pieces of equipment from the bag. “But no, this is the main attraction. We have the EMF—we have to be careful there; there are all kinds of things in an old house that might set that off—the spirit box, the thermal and regular.” She indicated each of the items in term. “Normally, I would start off doing a full sweep of the property, comb through every room, using the emf as a guide. We get any hot spots, that’s where we spend our time tonight.”

“It’s going to be interesting if we find any ghosts,” Gwen smirked as she abandoned her jacket over the couch, like a hooligan, as if she were coming home after a long day. “Don’t know how they’d feel about an impromptu sleepover.”

“Spin the bottle would be a lot easier,” she quipped.

...before thinking about the greater implications of that comment, _holy shit, she didn’t mean to say that._

Gwen grinned, eye brows flying up. “Easier _how_?”

“Whelp guess we got to start the ghost tour now yep, here we go, time to get started,” she babbled, grabbing the EMF and clicking the camcorder on. She shoved it up to her eye to check the quality, before shoving it to Gwen’s chest. “You’re on camera duty,”

“You got it,” Gwen said, but there was something in her voice.

Mallory led them through the house at a snail’s pace. It was super odd to be doing thing with another person there. She did her usual narrating, communicating what she was looking for, but Gwen didn’t seem to mind. She hoped the camera quality was really bad. She didn’t want to experience the mortification of watching her own face redden on playback, under the constant attention of Gwen’s gaze.

Which still baffled her, how easily she was going along with all of this, how she joked as though Mallory had done nothing wrong. She’d said as much, but that didn’t make any sense. She should have been angry. There was a big difference between avoiding blame when you’ve got some kind of scheme, and having false accusations thrown at you repeatedly for several weeks. But she was just cool with it?

Sometimes, Mallory just did not understand people.

_Get a grip, operative,_ she scolded herself. _She’s just a girl._

...but that was kind of the problem??

(She was so sure she was going to be mad! Hold a grudge. But she just let her off the hook.

She didn’t know how to feel.)

She cleared her throat, dimming any flush that may or may not have colored her ears. “So. When we’re using the EMF to detect a presence, and we get any sort of reading, we want to scan closer, see if any particular object is giving it off.”

“Because old houses sometimes just have things that would hold those fields?” Gwen called from behind the camera.

“Right,” Mallory called, squinting into the dim room. Even though it was only around five, the muggy atrmosphere made her wish she had unpacked her headlamp.

The was a low-level ping in this room, which was, as though dictated by stereotype, a kid’s room. The lore she’d found about this house indicated that the alleged murdered family was (1) mother, (1) father, and a young boy, so that actually tracked.

Stepping forward, she brought the EMF closer to the wall, and the ping intensified. “Hm.” Drawing a circle around the spot, she found a place where the higher gauge continued. It continued down the wall, until she pushed a trunk to the side to reveal a delipidated looking outlet. “Ah, there, you see?” She began to move the device away from the wall, explanation found, but stopped, frowning. “Huh.”

Gwen lowered the camera. “What is it?”

“...nothing too weird,” Mallory murmured, before stepping back to look at the room. “The path this current followed keeps going, but I’m guessing that’s just the wiring.”

Gwen stepped forward, her shadow looming in the doorway. “So nothing supernatural?”

She held off answering. Frowning, she continued moving the device along the floor, until she reached the old metal bedframe. The higher EMF fluttered consistently as the same level. “...did you see anything metal in the previous rooms?”

Gwen gave a quiet noise. “Hm. The little table in the den—didn’t that have a metal frame? And there was a lamp in the master bedroom, I think.”

Mallory squinted, before turning towards the doorway. “...follow me for a second.”

They back-tracked to the den. There was no point in re-checking the lamp; it would make sense of that was holding on to some residual EMFs. The table, though. It was low enough, she might not have picked up on it at first.

Holding the device close to it, the light clicked up a dot, picking up on higher EMFs. “I’ve got a theory,” she told the camera without elaborating, leading them through a few of the rooms they hadn’t passed through yet, She found an old statue, and examined the rail leading up to the second floor. “Okay,” she admitted, straightening as Gwen trailed behind her into the entryway to the second floor. “That’s weird.”

“Higher than you were expecting?” Gwen guessed. And yes, sort of, but that wasn’t what gave her pause.

“Metal,” Mallory said finally. “Everything metal is giving off EMFs. The little statue, the beds, everything.

Gwen’s brow wrinkled. “Hold on. But there’s no current, right? They would have to be in a circuit?”

“Yes,” said Mallory. “And no, there’s not.”

“,,,ghosts?” Gwen pipes up optimistically.

“Not like any poltergeist I’ve ever seen, but hey. Could be. One sec.” Tromping back down to the table on the lower floor, she grabbed the voice recorder, and the spirit box. She climbed back to the second floor, “Let’s go back to the kid’s room again. If anything’s haunted, it’s that shit.”

They settled down in the boy’s room, and Mallory placed the box on the floor. “This,” she told the camera, and by that fact Gwen, “is a spirit box. It tracks through radio signals, creating a sort of white noise. We ask questions, and we look for direct answers. Also, full phrases—if it tosses out something like ‘spaghetti,’ it’s probably not relevant.”

Gwen snickered, and quickly tried to cover it up. “That’s suspiciously specific. Does that have a story behind it?”

“Eh, later,” Mallory grumbles, the phrase _apple taters_ floating through her mind with a sense of mocking. Not the time. “Beware. This is going to be loud.”

The room filled with cacophonous static as she clicked it on. The both flinched, but Mallory was somewhat used to that racket, so she recovered quickly and turned on the voice recorder. “Hello,” she said. “My name is Mallory. I am here to find out who you are, and what you want. Is there anyone here with us right now?”

The radio scanned through channels at a rapid-fire pace. She caught the first two notes of _Feel Good Inc_ (hey, good song) and the briefest second of a news report (‘ _invasive speci—‘,)_ but nothing that sounded like a reply. She waited a second, glancing back to Gwen almost sheepishly. She usually only had herself to disappoint in these situations. She repeated the question. “Is there anyone there?”

This time, there was a whirring noise of distortion, and something that sounded like it could have been a bitten-off clip from a radio drama. ‘ _EM—_ ’ sharply in a woman’s voice; could have been nothing, might have been a name. “Emily? Did I hear an Emily? Or no.” She waited, but the noise didn’t repeat itself. “What do you want?” Static. She frowned, leaning forward. “What is wrong with the metal in your house?” Nothing.

They tried some other combinations of questions, getting the same collection of amalgam nonsense as they had before, one a clip of _low, low prices!_ that made Gwen laugh aloud. After thirty minutes, they moved on to the master bedroom, and had similar luck.

After about two hours, nearing 5:00 at a guess, they moved back out to the entry room to the upper floor. None of the spaces they had worked in seemed more responsive than any of the others, so moving to a more open space might be beneficial. Maybe. This was actually one of the least successful ventures she’d had in a while, but she may have just needed to give it time.

They set up the spirit box for a while and let it run, repeating their questions. “At this point, we probably just need to wait,” she said eventually. “Manifestations tend to be more active at night, so it might be better to give it a couple hours to get dark and then break out the thermal camera. Maybe run through the house again, see if there are any abnormalities. This thing might give us something then.” She cut the static off, leaving the room ringing with quiet. Or, no, maybe that was just her ears ringing. She slumped against the wall, Gwen taking a spot beside her. Quite, um. Quite close, actually. She tried not to notice.

Gwen lowered the camcorder, setting it on the floor. She tugged on the strap. “You ever put this stuff online.

Mallory laughed shortly. “Uh, yeah. Sure do. I actually have a YouTube channel, but right now my videos are just lost in the ether.”

Gwen propped her hands on her knee, propped up—the bottom of her jeans were coated in dust like lace. “Wow, really? Honestly, I wondered, when you were explaining things. It seemed kind of rehearsed, to be honest.”

It was a bit of a sore spot, but she so rarely talked about it. She leaned her head back against the wall’s wooden paneling. “I want to do something with it—start my own show, or something. But it’s such a saturated market, and it’s mostly saturated by idiots—”

Gwen snorted suddenly—

“—so the people that are serious about it don’t really get a lot of attention. No one really watches it, but I’m hoping it might get more attention some day.” She shrugged. “Until then, I’ll kept doing it.”

Gwen made a soft noise. Mallory looked over and the girl’s eyes were closed, her head tipped back to rest against the woodgrain. “Mm, I wish I knew what I wanted. I haven’t really done a lot of planning; I’ve really just been trying to take it day by day until we figure something out.”

“Yeah, you probably had to do some pretty extensive planning in order to flee home like that. I’m honestly surprised your parents didn’t track you to Seattle immediately, given the prophetic TV station.” Beside her, Gwen gave a doubtful hum, and Mallory narrowed her eyes. “What?”

Gwen peered around, as though she were about to tell her a secret. Squinting from the corner of her eyes, she said, “I’m actually just _reeeeeally_ lucky?”

She said it like a fact—she _is_ lucky, not that she _got_ lucky. What the hell did that mean?

Wincing, Gwen said, “It’s been a thing for as long as I can remember. If I want something to happen, it usually goes my way. I took off for Seattle with the money I’d saved and a rough idea of what we needed: a place to stay, a job, and, well, to find you guys. It worked out that I came upon all those things. There was a vacancy at a motel just inside the city. When I searched the city wanted ads, I saw they needed a fill-in at that fencing studio, which coincidentally was something I already knew how to do. I’ve worked with the camp before, so I knew they needed people. I just happened to check out the hospital right before you came in.”

Mallory’s mouth hung open. She snapped it shut. _What!_ Okay, nope, this girl still fully retained her ability to make her furious. “You’re _shitting_ me.” Luck was fake as shit, this girl was a moron! “You just derped onto the highway and hoped everything would work out? Is this how you work all the time?! _How are you alive_?”

Gwen just shrugged. “Believe what you want, but the luck is a real force, and it needs to be respected. It works better if I’m vague about it, and I kind of have to consciously _want_ the luck. I basically need to ask for it.”

_Now hold on_. She pointed a finger vaguely in an upward direction. “That sounds more like faith than luck,” she sniped. “If you ask for specific ‘blessings,’ then credit some unknowable force when they work out, of course that looks like proof to you. What happens when they _don’t?”_

Gwen raised a brow, expression no longer so self-conscious. _Wow, okay, she actually believes all this._

Mallory was as skeptical as she’d even been. She knew, _-knew-_ fate to be a definable force, given the nature of her powers, and it wasn’t - _luck_ \- if you were always meant to win.

Gwen didn’t hesitate, though. “They never ‘don’t,’” she shot back, “If I’m specifically asking for it. It’s consistent. It always works.”

She couldn’t help the scoff that left her, and Gwen frowned. This...was it weird that she felt a little cheated, even if she didn’t think it was real? She’d been thinking of Gwen as her competition, but if Gwen was using some arbitrary ‘I always win’ magic (which she still didn’t think of as luck, let it be said,) then was it ever even a fair fight? She’d kind of come to view Gwen as a rival. But if she was _cheating_...“If that’s true, that’s overpowered as shit,” Mallory said bluntly. “What’s to stop you from just using it all the time?”

“Because it’s usually not worth it,” Gwen said, and that caused the rant that wanted to continue full-steam-ahead in Mallory’s mind to pause.

That...wasn’t what she was expecting. “What do you mean?”

Gwen glanced away, the self-righteous posture she’d taken on draining out of her. “I try not to use it too often,” she said, hesitant. “Because, while it always works for small things, eventually...well, I have to pay back the luck I used, I guess is the best way to put it. And I never know when it’s going to ask me to pay up. Like...” she lowered her voice, as if someone other than Mallory might be listening. “When I first discovered I could do it, I was a little kid, and I _did_ use it all the time. I had about a solid week that was totally perfect; I asked for everything. Everything was exactly the way I wanted it to be, I was abusing the hell out of it.” She took a breath. “And then at the end of the week, I woke up to find _both_ my guinea pigs had died, and I was crying so hard when I went to get my parents that I fell down the steps and broke my leg in three places.”

Mallory inhaled. “Oh, shit,” was all she could manage. Okay, that was...a pretty bad turn of events. It still didn’t 100% confirm Gwen’s theories about her own abilities, but she could see why she was so convinced. “I’m sorry.”

Gwen shook her head, and when she looked up again, she was smiling. “You’d think that would convince me to stop forever, right? But I couldn’t resist; I got curious and started experimenting. From what I’ve learned so far, I can do it pretty freely every once in a while, but if I start asking for too much, that’s when I start tipping the scales out of my favor. The kickbacks since that incident haven’t been as bad, but they were obvious enough that I could list them all out for you.” She tugged at the collar of her shit. “I’ll admit, though, I’m a little nervous. It took _a lot_ of meddling to get us to where we needed to be here in Seattle. Not sure when the other shoe’s going to drop on that, but...” she trailed off.

The room was quiet, the EMF calm as it set on the floor between them. There was an eeriness to the statement, a feeling like something was looming, just out of sight. After a moment, Mallory let out a little exhale through her nose. “I’m supposed to be the one telling the ghost stories here,” she said, and Gwen seemed to relax.

They just needed to wait out the time until sundown,

and,

then,

\--

Mallory wasn’t sure at first what had woken her up. It actually took her a second to realize that she had woken up—had they fallen asleep? Sloppy. With bleary eyes. She reached up to push her glasses into place—it was a little known fact, but this pair, one of two was outfitted with transition lens. Earlier, even indoors it had been bright enough to maintain the shade, but now in the house’s darkness they were entirely clear.

She inhaled, trying to get her bearings. She froze when she realized something was touching her, pressed up against her side. Body tense, she turned and froze.

Her cheeks heated as she noted the warm presence pressed against her was Gwen. She apparently hadn’t been the only one to fall asleep; the girls head was pillowed on her shoulder, eyes closed peacefully as dark lashes fanned across her cheek. She was right there, breathing softly in a way that made something tender in her ache. It was honestly a similar sort of feeling Carmen had evoked when she’d cried in front of her, except instead of making her want to fix whatever had caused it...it scared her a little, to find she wanted to hold onto that ache, that tenderness. She wasn’t used to anyone being this vulnerable in front of her. Maybe because people tended to become tired with her very quickly. It was a trait she was often proud of, but sometimes, she...wasn’t.

She was hesitant to move an inch, not wanting to break the moment.

And then she realized what had woken her, the constant background whine: the EMF was _absolutely losing its shit_.

Jolting, she jerked back and began to shake Gwen awake. “Gwen. _Gwen_. The meter’s freaking out, _you need to wake up_.”

Gwen jerked, breathing in sharply. “Huh?” The deep-sea blue of her eyes was almost black in the darkness. She frowned, gaze scanning rapidly. “Did we fall asleep?”

“Apparently,” Mallory said roughly, snatching up the equipment as Gwen shook herself awake.

“We need to get the thermal now. The EMF is freaking out; this could be a sign of some kind of actual activity—”

A low moaning noise made them freeze. It wasn’t like the oohing of a cartoon specter, the Scooby Doo villains in sheets. It was deep, and loud; it seemed to resonate over the house in a giant wave, distant enough that it had to have been something big in order to wash over them like it did.

She and Gwen stared at each other with wide eyes. “I,” she forced herself to speak. “I thought it was a ghost. I didn’t think it might be something else.”

She’s hunted for dozens of cryptids in the past, but she couldn’t think of anything that sounded like that.

The noise came again, and goosebumps shot down her back like the surface of a basketball. “We have to get out there,” she couldn’t hide the hesitation in her voice.

They seemed to break out of their spell, and Mallory and Gwen swept down the staircase with little worry for the safety of their limps. The camera swung from Gwen’s hand, and Mallory passed her the EMF, taking up the thermal camera as well. “This should help us see anything in the darkness.” And it was dark.

It must have been past eight, although she didn’t take the time to check the hour. How had they fallen asleep? The last thing she could remember, they were talking about Gwen’s freaky luck powers, and then...

And then...

What?

They delved into the trees. The brush enveloped them suffocating thickness, and Mallory raised the thermal camera, clicking it on.

Jarring, as the scene around them was bathed in faint orange. What the hell? “Look at this.” She held the camera up to Gwen.

“What’s wrong with it?” Gwen asked, hushed.

Oh, duh, obviously she wouldn’t have a context for it yet. Sure, trees tended to hold heat near the top, closer to the sun after a warm day like this. But if it were as late as she believed, the forest floor should have cooled more than this. “This should all be dark. Something just came through here registering a lot of heat.”

It was faint, though. Like some kind of radiation, miasma of heat. The orangey-haze cut a path through the trees, so they vaguely knew which direction to go in.

“Should we...really be walking into this?” Gwen slowed down beside her, steps decidedly less assured than Mallory’s were.

Because, while Mallory was kind of terrified, this could be her first real chance at an in-person encounter. Maybe that was reckless, like she was probably being the girl going down into the basement that you scream at in the horror movie. But she needed to know. “We at least need to see it. See what we’re dealing with here.” Something thin floated past her face and she swiped abruptly, thinking it was a spider web. Her hand hung in the air when she realized it was her own hair. “Oh shit,” she said. “This isn’t just heat. It’s literally an EMF.” What the hell could put out an electromagnetic field naturally powerful enough to feel warm?

“Whoa.”

Mallory looked up when she heard Gwen’s exhalation, and stopped, knowing immediately what she was talking about.

In the middle of the forest, a tower jutted up past the trees. They slowed their approach. The structure looming over them, rendered almost invisible at a distance with the surrounding foliage. Mallory pushed her glassed up more securely on her nose. “It looks like a radio tower. Why is it in the middle of the woods?” She turned to Gwen. “I mean, that’s not super weird in and of itself, but if they were planning on putting one here, why didn’t they clear the trees? This is a fire hazard.”

Gwen quipped, “Hey, maybe we’re chasing the spirit of Smokey the Bear.”

“Funny,” Mallory dead-panned, but...okay, it was actually a little funny. She eyed the tower. It didn’t look professional, its pieces jammed together asymmetrically, bends in parts of the frame. Her eyes drifted to the bottom, and she frowned. “Hey...”

She kneeled, squinting at the boxes at the tower’s base. They...looked familiar? She’d seen a radio tower or two living in Seattle, but she’s never seen bulky boxes like this at the base. Some kind of breaker? Or...

No, wait a minute, maybe she _did_ recognize these. Limply, she hovered a hand over the structure, only for it to drop back to her knee. Startled, she eyed the limb incredulously. _Um, excuse me?_

“Hey, uh,” she heard Gwen pipe up from behind her. Peering back, she saw the other girl had taken to her knees, “do you feel really tired all the sudden?”

Mallory’s eyes widened, and she stared down to her own kneeled position. She moved to get up, and was frightened by how _difficult_ it suddenly was. _Oh. Oh, shit._ “Something’s wrong,” she said, staggering.

“ _Mallory_ ,” Gwen suddenly whispered. “Mallory, to the left, _the trees_.”

The fear in her voice made Mallory’s stomach drop. Slowly turning to peer behind her, she went very, very still.

At first, it almost looked like a layer of gel was hanging off the bark of the trees in bulbous masses. But then the gel moved, translucent, and faintly iridescent. It dragged its body through the trees, leaving no residue, its enormous mass being dragged along with it. With way too much effort, Mallory lifted the thermal camera.

Oh, okay, well, there it was. It was the size of a small house and it was radiating EMF into the air in waves. Like freaking fake-ass miasma, dammit. Or something that looked like EMF, at least. This explained why all the metal was electrified in the house; this guy must have come through before they did.

She tested the heaviness in her limbs, and cursed in the quietest voice. “I can’t believe this. I think it’s a freaking Cryptid.”

Gwen wheezed. “Yeah, I had guessed.”

Mallory flung her arms out like a ragdoll in frustration. “No, no, dammit, not a _cryptid_ cryptid, a—oh, never mind, we’ve got to fight it.” She dragged her scepter from her jacket pocket.

She was relieved that the other soldier seemed to have taken their advice to heart about keeping the thing on her at all times, and’s Gwen’s hand grappled weakly for her pocket. “We have to _fight_ it? It’s huge!”

The creature seemed to have realized it was being spectated. It slowly rotated towards them. It didn’t have any features, but as it spotted them, thick appendages like arms formed from its body, as big around as tree trunks. It dug it’s way-too-human-looking-fingers into the dirt, dragging itself hand-over-hand towards them.

Okay, so it was big, and had creepy massive man-hands. And they were alone, she and Gwen who had only ever done one attack before. And the energy sucking thing was not great, and in fact might be classified as really bad, given that there didn’t seem to be a place to get away from it, judging by the orange miasma in the thermal camera and the heaviness in her own limbs.

But this? She knew how to do.

She pushed down her fear. “Eh,” Mallory said. “Not too much bigger than its spikey cousins. Besides, I had meant for this to be a training excursion, right? Guess I’m going to get my wish.” With a distinct lack of vigor, she punched her scepter into the air. “Decima Star Power, Make-up!”

At the same moment, she heard Gwen frantically call behind her, “Ah, Crystal Power Fortuna, Make-up!”

_‘Fortuna.’_ Fortune.

_Goddammit._

The light around her dimmed, her navy and tan uniform flaring around her. “That’s close enough, buddy,” she barked. “Destiny chain!” The chain shot out, piercing through the creature’s featureless face. It gave a bellow, the chain interweaving through the trees she way she had intended. Nice.

Then, the chain slowly began to move through the creature’s body, like a fork through jello. “Aw, really?”

“What am I supposed to do?”

Mallory by way of Sailor Decima turned back to see Gwen’s face tense with uncertainty. She peered to the creature and to her hands sluggishly, the salmon-pink scepter sitting inert in her palm.

She—Mallory was taken aback. She looked—pretty scared, actually. She was expecting Gwen to take to this like a fish to water, but apparently not. Maybe she actually did need to be a bit more instructive here.

She stepped back, watching the creature slowly sink through her attack. She shuddered. “Okay, you attacked last time. Do you remember what you did? The name should come to you.”

Gwen’s eyes flicked around aimlessly, as if the answer would be written out somewhere. “Yeees,” she said hesitantly. Bringing both arms out before herself, she placed her fists on top of one another.

Mallory wished she would hurry; she wasn’t sure how long that chain was going to slow it down.

With the top hand, Gwen drew a circle in the air with her fist, saying, “Celestial Roulette!” The circle lit up in the air, filling in with what looking like a series of panels. One, brighter than the others, began to round the circle. Finally, she drew her arm back, as though she were drawing a bow.

Meeting her eyes, uneasy, Gwen let go.

There was a burst of light, near blinding in the darkness. Mallory remembered what the attack had looked like last time: almost like a gun blast (or a cross-bow, arrow burning with energy?) That wasn’t what happened this time.

This time, a series of smaller projectiles carved through the air and sunk into the creature. It howled as they exploded from within.

Mallory’s head whipped back to look at Gwen. It may have looked cool, but it was significantly less fire power than before. “What the hell was that?”

Gwen floundered. Like her, it seemed like transforming had lightened the pull of the Miasma’s (she was going with that) influence, but she still seemed to be dragging. “I don’t know!”

She thought about it, trying not to let the monster out of her sight, and then promptly smacked herself. “It’s a Roulette,” she groaned. “It won’t always be the same thing. Okay. Can you do it again?”

Gwen placed her fists together and made the call, but no ring formed in the air. “No,” she shot out, looking harried.

“That’s okay,” she assured her. “It probably has a turn time—it needs to recharge. We just need to stay out of this thing’s way.”

But they were hours away from help. Their phones were back at the house, in the Faraday bag, where no signal could reach them.

If they got hurt—

Mallory took a breath. _We’ll just have to not get hurt then._

“Get ready,” she called out to her companion, both of them dragged their feet in the dirt as the Miasma dragged their strength away, and dragged itself through the chain with a sickening squelch. Her heart pounded as its oversized maw gapped, moaning out a note that sent horror rolling through her body. She grit her teeth. _“Here it comes—"_


	11. Chapter 11

**Episode 11: Needle in a Haystack—Or, Locating a Viable Trajectory**

They darted to either side as the massive creature drug itself through the underbrush. It collided with the copse of trees behind them, but that didn’t seem to slow it. Gwen wasn’t thrilled to be in this situation at all, but much less was she thrilled to be fighting some kind of sentient gelatin whose utterances were the noises of the damned. What were they supposed to use to fight this guy?

Gwen fell, skidding through the pine needles lining the forest floor where they clung with sap. Across the way, she could see Mallory stumble sideways into a tree, bracing herself against it as the beast peeled away from the trees with a _slurp_.

The creature’s impact with the trees seemed to do nothing. It dug its hands into the upturned dirt, bits of detritus kicking up into the air as it used them limbs as grounding to turn itself around. It was like tree trunks rooting and uprooting themselves repeatedly.

The dragging feeling still pulled on her limbs. It filled her with a sort of terror—she didn’t have a lot of skills, but she had always had control of her body, and moving around this thing was like moving through a thick soup. It was like those dreams when you try to run, but you never really get to moving.

It grabbed onto one of the nearby trees, and she tensed in alarm as the trunk began crackling under its grip. “Move!” Mallory shouted from across the way, and Gwen stumbled back with all the urgency she could muster as the tree came down. She hissed as the bark scrapped at her leg, tearing at the black tights this uniform had given her. It stung as blood began to pool in the scratches.

Good news was, this thing didn’t seem to be too smart. By pulling down the tree, it had only created an obstacle for itself. “What does this thing want?” She yelled as it agitatedly began oozing over the felled tree, and she made her way around.

“They absorb energy,” Mallory called, dragging herself bodily back. “Apparently, we have a lot of it.”

Something occurred to her. “It’s ooze. Can it actually hurt us?”

“It seemed to hurt that tree pretty well,” she said drying, which, fair point.

Mallory yelped at the creature, frustrated, flopped backwards and head-over-sliming-base towards her from atop the needled tree. “Fuck!” She darted behind a tree, at the towering pine shuddered at the beast splatted into it and began to shake the tree free of the ground. “How’s that attack coming?”

Gwen stopped where she’d been moving over, stopping to find again the stance she needed. Why did she even have to stand a particular way? What was the point of that? Never mind, now. She brought her hands together and called the attack again. “Celestial Roulette!”

_Yes! Light!_

She could feel it in her bones as the Roulette clicked through options, and she drew her arm back. She let it go.

This time, the bolts shot away from her in four different directions. Like heat-seeking missiles, they found four points around the creature—north, south, east, and west. As the beast shuddered in protest, a net-like structure made of light flickered into being around it.

“Hey! Nice!” Mallory called, and Gwen flushed a little at the praise. Maybe she wasn’t completely terrible at this, after all.

Although, what the roulette gave her seemed to be based entirely on luck. Uneasily, she wondered how these maneuvers were affecting the balance of her personal fortune scale. She really couldn’t afford to take her metaphorical tab up any higher, if she wanted to keep all of her bones intact.

Or worse.

The creature didn’t seem able to break through the net, and Gwen could feel the weakness in her limps fading. She and Mallory scrambled into the middle of the clearing together while the had the chance. “Who knows how long that’s going to last,” Gwen said as Mallory shook pine needles from her hair. “What else have you got?”

Mallory took on an odd expression. “You know, I think I might have another attack.”

_Wait, really?_ “Well, now or never,” Gwen prompted, and Mallory corrected her footing to something sturdier. “Why are you waiting until now?”

“Didn’t know I had it until now. Here goes.”

As Gwen watched, the other girl took a breath and held her arm out. In her hand was the deep blue wand thing. Gwen took a step back as she began to glow. _Whoa...did I look like that?_ She looked totally different that the holographic, extraterrestrial figure she and her comrades had appeared as before Gwen and her sister had made it out of the bus that one time.

She brought her fingers together just as she had done to call the chain. This time, though, she brought the hand across her neck threateningly before sweeping it out then sharply down in front of herself. She called out, “ ** _Ill-Omen Descension!”_**

As they watched, dark light blasted up around the monster in a circle, and then what looked like a tiny plaque seemed to hover down to the creature from above. When she squinted, Gwen could see two symbols on the plaque: the same symbol on Mallory’s wand thing, δ, and above that what looked like a large letter V. The creature didn’t seem to like the light, but she couldn’t see any other affects.

V

δ

Gwen turned to her. “What does that do?”

“No idea,” Mallory sighed, just about the time the net popped like a bubble.

They jolted as the monster shuddered, seeming to realize it was free, it gave a decidedly more vicious groan that before, lunging around to find them. Already, Gwen could feel the draining sensation returning.

“I wonder if—” She heard Mallory cut off mid-sentence, at that was all the warning she got before the chain shot through the air past. It looped around trees on either side of the creature, and as the blob reached up to yank at the sad restraints, it dislodged the smaller trees it was hooked to, collapsing new obstacles into the monster’s path. “Ha! They can double up!”

Gwen peered up at their enemy, which towered over her as it began to ascend the fallen trunks. She noticed something.

The markings on the plaque had changed.

IV

δ

Her eyes widened. “Mallory, the plaque!”

The other girl peered upward, then swore sharply. “It’s a countdown,” she dragged herself to brace behind a tree. “What happens when it hits zero?”

“Hopefully something good,” Mallory said.

Gwen only caught sight of her eyes widening for a second before she watched a huge, broken-off trunk smash into her.

Mallory’s figure blurred as she was tossed through the trees. In the glint of the moonlight, Gwen could see the red flicker of blood shining from the blur until the other girl landed with a smack. _Oh, shit!_ “Mallory?!”

“Ow,” the girl wheezed, seeming to have trouble getting the word out. _“Ow,”_ she said again, a note of panic creeping into her voice.

Gwen dropped as the broken-off tree was swung in her direction, its splintered end swiping past her like a moving pit of spikes. Stray twigs dug into her arms, but they were nothing compared to the falling debris from the trees above as they were absolutely decimated by the monster’s make-shift mace.

She drug herself across the ground, wincing at the scrap along her arms and legs.

“Oh, shit—"

She peered over and jolted when she noticed that the creature had slunk overtop her new teammate. Like some sort of horrific gelatin, she was absorbed into the mass, trapped within the viscous substance. Could she even breathe in there?

The plaque ticked down.

III

δ

No, no, she was the one who was supposed to know what to do here! Gwen didn’t know what she was doing! _What could she do?_

She looked down to her hands—had the Roulette charged up enough? But, no, what if she hit her? She didn’t have any choice!

_Please, please, please..._ she placed her fists together. “Celestial Roulette!”

The ring formed at the call. Her pulse pounded as she pulled her arm back to fire. Her gaze fixated on the limp form suspended within the body of the monster.

She let go.

It was the miniature bolts again. The blasted into the monster from all directions, blasting its flesh away in hunks. The creature moaned disdainfully, its arms shriveling as it seemed to redirect the plasma back to it’s broken-open spots.

Gwen rushed forward. It didn’t matter what the danger was, she had to get Mallory out of there! She hoped they hadn’t hit her, but she thought she could see a portion of her arm exposed.

Her heart sunk as she saw the gel begin to fill in around the limb. The creature was practically vibrating with energy, probably being siphoned off from her companion at that very moment.

II

δ

She grabbed the arm. Only her elbow was free, and she grabbed it and pulled, even as the monster’s matter tried to fill in the gap. “Argh, no! Come on, come on!” She grimaced as the arm came out somewhat, but the rest of her body was vacuumed firmly in the gel. She yanked her arm back at the substance latched onto her own arm and tried to pull her in.

It was no use. She couldn’t pull her free—it would just suck her in too. She hovered back and forth around the back of the monster. There had to be something, _something!_

I

δ

δ

There was a noise from above and a dark light descended over them. The creature made a horrible noise, and then seemed to melt—its substance sunk into the ground below as if a force were pressing down on it, until eventually all of its body had sunk into the ground and Mallory—

Mallory.

Gwen fell forward towards her, just about the time the girl curled on her side and hacked. She coughed the same viscous material out onto the ground. She inhaled desperately, and it sounded wet and painful.

“Ooooh fuck,” she wheezed. “it’s real bad, never got hit this bad before—”

“Jesus,” Gwen swore, holding down a gag at the fragments of wooden spearing into the other girl’s stomach. Oh, no, oh no, they were so far out from the road—“I’m sorry,” she blurted, sickened at the violent scraps to the girl’s side, which didn’t look much better. “I’m sorry, this is my fault, my, my stupid luck thing—”

“No, it’s not,” Mallory grunted. Gwen’s hands hovered uselessly as the girl moved to stand, unsure whether to stop her or help her. While she was debating, Mallory had already gotten to far up to stop her, and so she ducked to catch her under the arms and stop her from falling forward and actually killing herself. Gwen made a soft noise, terrified by the jutting wood, knowing she shouldn’t try to remove it. “My first battle, I got thrown—urgh—from the window of a 600 foot building. This shit happens.”

Gwen inhaled, dread seeping into her. She’d been playing this whole space powers thing off like some mysterious adventure to be had, but she was starting to understand that she really had no idea what she was in for. She adjusted her stance, making sure her grip was firm. “We need to get you to the hospital.

Slowly, they limped back to the house.

They were only there for a few minutes, and the stop only revealed more bad news. “There’s no signal,” Gwen said, anxiously hovering over her phone screen, now extracted from the Faraday bag. They were both still in their uniforms. That was Mallory’s suggestion; apparently, she wasn’t sure if their accelerated healing worked better in uniform or not, but if it did, they needed it. Mallory moreso, by a huge margin.

“Try mine,” Mallory said, voice thin.

No dice.

She bit her lip. “We can’t wait ‘til morning. Can you navigate us the way you are now?” She really didn’t think she should be moving, but it was move now or stop being able to.

This was nightmare. This was the kind of situation people got into in horror movies. Stuff like this wasn’t supposed to just _happen_.

“’Mm gonna have to try,” she slurred.

Gwen stuffed Mallory’s things back into her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. Looking back, the girl’s closed-eyed sprawl across the couch rendered her incredibly still, and had she not spoken seconds before, Gwen might have been convinced she was looking at a cadaver. She swallowed, making her way back over.

“Well, come on, then.” She tried to keep the dread out of her tone. “We need to head off.”

Reality flickered in starts and stops. In the dark, Mallory hoped she was identifying the landmarks right as they seemed to appear before her like slides in a presentation. She wasn’t sure how much of what she was seeing was actually there, though, and how much was her blood loss playing tricks in the night.

Every once in a while, she felt Gwen shift beside her, going for her phone. There would be a sudden light, she’d curse a little fretful noise and the light would disappear. Time would pass, and then repeat. She knew it had been a 2 hour walk from the ranger’s station, but that would be closed at this time of night. She had no idea how much time had actually passed.

At one point, the light appeared, and she felt a hurried shuffle ( _ow_ ) before Gwen’s voice softly said, "Hello?”

There was more talking after that, but she couldn’t keep track of it. The night blinked in her eyes.

And then she could see the highway stretching out before them, Carmen’s dad’s bulky Lexus LX tearing up the mountainside.

_Okay._ That was good enough.

She allowed herself to finally, finally pass out.

Mallory lounged back on the cot, the wounds in her abdomen throbbing painfully.

The hospital room (how long had her eyes been open?) pulsed in and out around her like film reel slowed waaaaaaay down. It was bright,

It was daytime.

She inhaled, trying to rouse herself from the tug that tried to pull her back under. The light pierced into her brain and she squinted against it. She began to push herself up so that she could see more than the non-descript tiles overhead to get her barrings.

That was immediately apparent as a mistake. She hissed sharply as stabbing pain shot through her abdomen. “No, no, no, don’t get up,” a voice tittered above, a familiar shape moving in above her to settle weight on her sholders. Groaning, she laid back down with a thump, but that was also bad.

Through the little animated stars swirling around in her vision, the shape resolved to, of all people, Gwen, grimacing down at her and gently pulling back from her shoulders. The frown stayed on her face as she backed up, giving her space.

Gwen? What was she doing there?

She tracked back through her last memories, and slowly found inklings of what might have landed her there. _Oh, yeah._

_Oh, shit!_

_Her hand moved to her middle, which was somewhat numbed and cushioned with the feeling of bandages. Last she knew, she was doing a really shitty impression of a cactus cosplay. They must have pulled those pieces out, as the area felt smooth now._

Gwen watched her with what seemed like a level of nerves, but then Carmen’s face came into view.

Her eyes were rimmed pink, and Mallory could hear the bedframe creak as she leaned over. “I’m so sorry!“ She blubbered, bob of caramel hair unusually unkempt.

Mallory frowned, more than she would have already been frowning in a stated of marked pain. ‘What are you sorry for?” the words were slightly garbled in her mouth.

“If I hadn’t convinced you guys to go alone, the rest of us would have been there to help,” Carmen sniffed. “I didn’t even think about you guy’s safety! It was so stupid!”

“Can you summon monsters all a’ sudden?” She said, and Carmen stopped. “Cause unless you can, you couldn’t’ve known there was a monster. If you can though, you are in trouble, because that could be a real tact’al advantage and I would be mad if you hadn’t mentioned it—”

Carmen hugged her gently around the shoulders. “Well,” she said. “You sound like yourself.” She pulled back then tugged her phone from her pocket. “I’m going to call Rory.”

“For real, though,” she heard a familiar voice say by the doorway—she was able to tilt her head up just slightly to see Narma leaning up against the door. “That thing kabobbed you, no joke. The doctor says it’s a miracle the wood didn’t pierce any major organs.”

They must have had the same thought at the same time, because she and Gwen looked at each other. “Yeah. That’s...” The girl grimaced. “...really lucky.”

“I still don’t think that was it,” Mallory grumbled from her recline, and Gwen just shrugged lightly whilst their comrades looked on, confused.

“It could be said that that was understandable, given the circumstances.”

Mallory blinked at the new voice, and she tilted her head a little further to see Gwen’s sister sitting in a chair nearby. Oh. Okay. Not one she would have expected, though she supposed Gwen had been attacked too.

“If I did it,” said Gwen, “I didn’t do it on purpose.” Crossing her arms, her gaze flicked over to Mallory in the bed.

Boy, she wished she were wearing her shades; maybe she could make out that expression better. Also, ow?

Gwen said, “If you’re wrong, than it just would have made it worse.” She turned, moving for the doorway. “I’m going to get some air.”

“Get two,” Mallory said flatly.

Around her, the atmosphere was tense. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Carmen take the available chair she assumed Gwen had left behind. Mallory said, “She seems...pretty spooked.”

“She didn’t like the bus either, and we weren’t even really in that one,” said Sylvia without inflection.

“Well, the doctors did say you are supposed to be in here for a week at least. This wasn’t exactly a paper cut.” Narma said flatly, and Mallory balked (she could _not_ be stuck in here for a _week_.). “What was it, anyways?” Narma seemed content to stay by the door, despite the room’s occupancy dwindling.

Mallory groaned. “Big miasma-ass muk-looking gelatin man-hand having motherfucker,” Mallory summarized. “Showed up around back of the house we were checking out, nearby this tower thing—” Remembering what she had seen, she promptly tried to sit up again, before failing completely. She whimpered, feeling the pull of some kind of stitches. “Dammit, guys, listen. I saw these boxes by the tower (like a radio tower), and at the time I couldn’t remember where I’d seen them. But I remember now. Guys, I think I know what have been causing the earthquakes lately.”

\--

The moment Erin woke up that morning, her eyes flew to the time: 8:05 AM.

She went to her laptop first. Her heart pounded as she went to her email, and then leapt when she saw the message waiting inside. _Response to you inquiry on Seattle Athletics Camp. She had never clicked on something so fast, and braced over her laptop like a_

_Erin,_

_I’m happy to hear you are interested in our camp! Our session for the summer has just ended, but we do have a fall session upcoming._

_To provide more detail, the Seattle Athletics Camp is a fit and fun seasonal camp for students in the Washington area, with itineraries for both youth (8-12) and adolescent (13-18) groups. We offer a variety of unique athletic experiences, including classes in specialized sports and more adventurous excursions in the beautiful woodland..._

Erin’s ears were ringing and the rest of the emailed pitch tunneled in her vision. She backed away from the laptop, staring down at the thing as though it had personally attacked her.

Students.

_Students?_

She thought back to the footage she had scene of the soldiers. Tried to recall their proportions: height, weight, body dimensions. Under the alien glamour of holographics, could those have been adolescents? Not small children, certainly, but teens?

...maybe. Uncertainly, she reached out and gently closed the laptop, email still open. Yes, it wasn’t out of the question. And it would explain the camp: a group of teenagers going to camp together.

She...didn’t know how to feel about this.

Retreating to the kitchen, she leaned against the table. There was a pit in her chest. _Children, basically._ She had known the risks. She had a visceral awareness of the horrors she had caused, by her own hands, but she had never meant for children to get hurt. And this was no accidental act, this was a mission. She ran her thumb over the surface of her locket, feeling the grooves of the engraving. Were these the targets she was meant to hunt?

...she couldn’t back out now. If she backed out now, all that pain would have been for nothing. She had to follow through.

Something niggled at her though. Why did the factor of them being students ping at something in her brain? Why did that feel...

Frowning, she moved to her bag, pulling out the folder her notes had been messily replaced in. She went back through the list of sightings.

A young reporter had been attacked by a creature back several months ago and had claimed to have been saved by a soldier.

And then...

Her eyes widened. She snatched up the paper from her bed, fingers creating small rips. She didn’t care. This was...

The second ever sighting of the Soldiers had been in a school.

A high school.

Why had none of the research she performed ever considered this? Perhaps the public was simply reluctant to consider the ones putting themselves on the front lines for them could have been a child, but _this!_

_Garfield High School._ What if the soldiers didn’t show up to the school because they heard trouble, what if they were there because they were _already in the school?!_

Erin sucked in air like she was suffocating. And here! Another sighting! _A choir concert, the same school!_

_How many girls could there be in one highschool?_ She snapped the computer back open, the device creaking in protest. The searched the name, bringing up the school’s demographics.

  1. Roughly. Not as few as she would have liked, but hell if it wasn’t a start.



She wondered how difficult it was to hack into student records.

\--

The last twenty-four hours had been some of the most excruciating of Gwen’s life.

That wasn’t even taking into account the damage she had taken in battle, the uncomfortable scrapes and stress she had endured trying to work out what the heck she could even do. It was the walk back—the trek through two hours worth of forest in the pitch darkness, just hoping Mallory was aware enough not to take them over a cliffside, not knowing if the other girl was going to be okay or not with veritable spears of wood impaling her in the stomach and no signal to speak of, had been the worst.

Her stomach had never been tied up in so many knots. What if they didn’t make it in time? What if eccentric, sharp-tongued Mallory, Mallory who was funny without trying to be, Mallory that she _liked_ , just, as a person? _Died_ before they could get back to civilization because she didn’t know anything about fighting monsters and hadn’t been able to help?

What if she caused this.

It only got worse as the signal failed and failed to get through until finally, it did.

She had no idea how her friends were blaming themselves. Why weren’t they blaming her?

She’d spent ten minutes in the hospital bathroom scrubbing Mallory’s blood out her jacket

where it had soaked in in the car, and had put it back on sopping. This...this, was a lot. She needed some air. After she’d stood uselessly in the lobby for about ten minutes, she realized that wasn’t getting her anywhere and she headed back to the room.

Mallory was already speaking when she came in. “—was an EMP machine. That’s where the earthquakes are coming from.”

Gwen frowned. “What, what’s happening?” What did the earthquakes have to do with anything?

The others turned to look at her. Mallory raised her gaze. “Do you remember those boxes at the bottom of the radio tower we found?”

Not really, but now that she mentioned it... “maybe,” she said slowly.

Mallory’s eyes focused on her. She seemed to have found her glasses, so, hey, maybe she could evem see her. “EMP generators. Big ones. The biggest I’ve ever seen by far.”

Gwen blinked. Her first instinct was to try and connect the creature’s big-boy EMF signals to that fact, but it still didn’t seem to make any sense. “What would be the point of that?”

“The earthquakes,” Sylvia piped up flatly. “Mallory says that strong EMP signals can cause earthquakes.”

“Really strong,” Mallory clarified. “Stronger than we have the technology for right now. It’s been observed on a small scale, but in order to cause the kind of minor quakes that we have been experiencing recently? This would have to some ground breaking tech.”

Gwen held a hand up. “Okay. Interesting, but why do we think the earthquakes are related at all?”

Mallory sat back. “Well the presence of the EMP machines is weird, in general. With the monster showing up right there, and giving off the same kind of signal, it’s honestly just a theory that it is related.” She leaned forward, then winced, aborting the motion.

Carmen moved to hold the girl’s shoulder down with two fingers. “You’re too dramatic for your health —”

“But if they are related,” she said, decidedly louder, maybe to make up for not being able to move, “then it’s really important that they’re related.”

“Okay.” Gwen waited.

Mallory continued. “Let’s say the tower is meant to be causing the earthquakes. It still had satellite dishes, so it is being operated remotely. But why?” She flicked a finger towards the girl she didn’t know as well, Norma, maybe? No, wait, Narma. “Narma did a quick check for me, and every time the Urchin has shown up—or Spindly Legs, that last time—there’s been an earthquake nearby. Not always in the city, but close." She kept her finger raised, but already, _excuse me?_ "Before that, Spindly Legs always caused the lights to go out. Our theory was that that happened because it was sucking up the power, but _what if we were wrong_? First, the lights went out, then earthquakes. What if those things are being used to _power the creatures_?”

Gwen’s brow furrowed, and she shook her head. “Is that even possible?”

“The power always surged first,” Narma said grimly.

“But that’s a weak source,” Mallory said pointing, excitement in her tone, “just plain Jane electricity. Now, geothermal energy? That’s the big guns. Better energy? Better monster.”

Gwen thought about it for a moment, but only felt regret creeping in. “We should have destroyed it while we were there, then.” Then, maybe the monsters wouldn’t have enough power to show up, from what it sounded like.

“No, it’s fine,” Mallory hissed. “That still tells us two really important things, if we’re right.”

Gwen stared at her for a minute, in one part relieved to see the fire rekindled in her, but also not thrilled to be giving her new reasons to throw herself into danger. She shrugged helplessly. “...I hope it’s a good payoff. Lay it on me.”

Mallory said, “Firstly, satellites have a limited range.”

Gwen’s eyes widened. “Oh shit, wait, so we should be able track it?”

She shrugged. “We should at least be able to get a perimeter on where it could have come from. That might be the best we can do, but it’s better than nothing. Especially since part of that should be the middle of the woods, and therefore easy to spot.”

Heck, that was something. She peered around to the others, looking for some hint of what they might know. She turned her gaze back to Mallory. “Okay. What’s the other thing?”

Mallory lowered her voice, and Gwen strained to hear her. “If this person is using geothermal energy and never-before-seen EMP generators, that’s science, not some superpower. These things were created, not popped out of the air by some magic bullshit like last time.”

Gwen didn’t know enough about ‘last time’ for that info to be helpful.

Mallory narrowed her eyes. “We’re not looking for creature. We’re looking for a _person_.”

Just then, a woman entered the room behind her. Mallory visibly tensed. “Mallory! Now what they hell happened this time?”

Gwen plastered herself to the door at the woman’s tone. Who was this, exactly?

The other girls looked to each other awkwardly, as though they had some kind of insider knowledge as to what was going on there. Which, come to think of it, they probably did.

“So,” said Mallory, steepling her hands. “I may have fallen on this broken-up tree trunk situation.”

The woman, older, rounder with a purpling face, smacked her hands on her hips with finality. “Like hell you did!”

Mallory slowly lowered her hands until a single finger remained up. It looked like _, but wait, no, you’re supposed to believe that._

Gwen stared between them wide-eyed as she remained plastered to the door.

Something told her this was about to get awkward.

\--

Needless to say, Mallory wasn’t doing so hot.

Rory wished she could have been there when she woke up—she didn’t want girl to think she didn’t care. But she was going to be confined to the hospital bed for about a week, so it wasn’t like she wasn’t going to get any opportunities.

She’d come in just in time to see Mallory’s foster care lady (she insisted they not refer to her as mom) going absolutely ham. She didn’t believe the “fell on an old tree trunk” story for a second (it was the best they could come up with!), and so Mallory was super grounded, which seemed a little unfair.

Of course, that wasn’t the only worry Rory was keeping track of at the moment.

Namely, the new gang.

She had tracked down one of those street names she’d first heard at the last meeting (it was crazy that she could even remember, after the drama with Tyrell) and had watched it for several nights. What she found out was that there were several guys working the area, stopping into what looked like an old hotel then dipping out with bags. From what Tyrell had told her, she knew they were mostly likely chock full of guns.

“They call themselves The Crimson Roots,” Tyrell had told her as Sailor Boreas when she had confronted him the other day. He’d spoken so quiet, like he was afraid they might have been hiding in the shadows like ghost.

She’d thought the name was pretty lame, but her skepticism quickly chilled as he began to explain.

“They want to completely dominate the arms trade in the US. The last city I was in was the most recent in dozens they got their hands in—they move in, find out whoever is doing the most in the city, then either make deals or wipe them out. They’re completely brutal,” he gave a small shudder. “They figure if they the biggest force already, that’s no competition left to come at them. It’s actually pretty smart, if they got the fire power. I don’t even know where they got so many pieces in the first place.” He took a shaky breath, looking at her more directly. “But that’s why I’ve got to stick around. It I can find some kind of chink in their network, I might be able to give the police an in. This isn’t just Seattle in trouble; it’s the whole country. They plant their roots, then leave. And they just keep growing.”

So, that was kind of a big problem.

It only renewed Rory’s anxiety about the whole thing. Let’s say she somehow took down all the guys in the city. With what Tyrell was saying, wouldn’t more folks just come in behind them? This gang sounded huge! She was starting to think she was in a bit over her head here. It didn’t matter, though—there was too much at stake now for her to back out.

She stood on the roof across from the building, trying to come up with the best way to get in. The place had been crawling with guys; no way was she going to sneak in the back the way she had at the last spot. And there were no convenient handholds up to the upper windows, so that was out. It was a hotel—could there have been an entrance on the roof?

As she stood to make her way across to that side of the road, she heard the chilling sound of a safety being disengaged behind her, and she froze. “I don’t think I even gotta’ tell you not to move right now.”

Rory—no, Sailor Boreas, it was go time—raised her hands slowly. “No, I get it,” she said.

“We don’t especially appreciate you putting our boys away,” the guy said.

She slowly turned around—it was the one guy, thin, with the end of his bandana trailing out behind him like a fin. Shark. “I can understand that,” she said slowly. Disguising it with a blink, she peered back to the ledge behind her for just a second. How far down was that? Could she reach her scepter in time? She watched him carefully. If she didn’t, she was definitely going to get shot. “But you understand why I gotta do what I gotta do, right? I want you guys to leave Seattle alone.”

The guy tensed his chin as though he were actually considering it, and she took another step back. The edge was right there. “Nah. Afraid that just doesn’t line up with the works we got going, unfortunately.” He raised the jump.

Sailor Boreas stepped back—and over the edge.

“Shit!” She heard the guy curse from above, but she was more concerned about using that half-second to call a gust below her as she grabbed the scepter. She must have been getting really quick on the draw, because fractions of seconds before she landed the gust rushed in and cushioned her fall. She tried to ride the wind a distance away, but yelped when two guys emerged from the alley she was headed towards and grabbed her arms.

She thrashed as they escorted her towards the warehouse.

As they entered, she could see what looked like bins that had been hastily covered. There were several guys around—maybe fifteen? More than she had ever fought before, to be sure.

She gritted her teeth, in the back, she noticed Tyrell. She’d been watching people coming in and out—had she missed him? If not, he had to have been there for hours. He froze when he saw her, and she diverted her attention immediately. She didn’t want to draw attention to him. Besides, she had bigger problems right now?

“What have we got here?”

She recognized the guy who stepped forward as the cool, collected guy who had seemed to be in charge in the meeting she had observed before. Tyrell had mentioned the guy up top there was called Harlo—was this him? She shuddered, yanking her shoulder away from the grip that held her, but no give. This guy was _strong._

Maybe Harlo? Harlo-until-proven-otherwise eyed her with an air of unconcern. His hands were folded before himself, but she didn’t miss the gun in his waistband.

“I’m kind of glad you showed up. I think we need to have a chat.”

That surprised her. “’Bout what?” Sailor Boreas frowned. “I would have thought you would have just up and shot me.” ...maybe not the best option to mention, come to think of it. Too late now.

But the man shook his head. “Now, you see, that’s just making us sound like a bunch of thugs. But we can be reasonable.” His playful tone dropped sharply. “See, we figure you might be better to us alive, if you’re willing to compromise.”

Like she was going to compromise with gangbangers! Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what exactly was going on in these guy’s heads. She narrowed her eyes, though she wasn’t sure how much they were actually able to make out her facial expressions through the filter. “What do you mean by ‘compromise?’”

The guys looked to each other. Behind her, she was distinctly aware of how strong their grips were, waiting for any sign they might be faltering. Of course, even if they did, the likelihood she would be able to get away before they pulled their arms was unlikely, to say the least.

“We need some help weeding out the competition, you feel me? And we figure it might be mighty helpful to have some kind of super-powered freak on our side.”

She clenched her teeth. _I’ll show you freak._ “I’m not going to be some kind of lackey for you.”

Harlo quirked an eyebrow. “Whadda you mean? You’d still be taking out the bad guys. You’ve just be taking out selective bad guys. That sounds like a good business strategy to me.”

“While you get too big to manage?” She spit. “doesn’t sound very smart to me.”

Probably-Harlo laughed. Behind him, some of the other guys chuckled, and chills went up her back. Tyrell looked away. He said, “Girlie, we’re already too big to manage. Don’t know if you heard.”

Sailor Boreas leaned back, trying not to show her uncertainty show. Still, her mind with spinning 100 MPH. What if she died here? She kind of doubted she would say in uniform if she died, with out any commands to call on. Who would tell her Mama? Who would even know? If they moved to kill her, would Tyrell try to stop it? Course, he didn’t know any better.

No! She needed to focus, she couldn’t worry about this kind of thing right now!

Harlo eyed her for a moment. “I tell you, that was really not what I was hoping you would say.” Scratching at the scruff on his chin, he peered back to a couple of his cohorts, and Sailor Boreas eyed them with apprehension. “Tell you what. How about we give this girl somewhere nice and quiet to think? See if she wants to change her mind before we have to blow it out.”

What the hell did that mean?! The began dragging her forward, and she dug her heels in, the sea of gangsters parting before her. Tyrell looked on, brows furrowed with discomfort.

She had to do something. But they had her scepter! The guy who had grabbed her had it clutched between his meaty finger, out of her reach. Her eyes darted around, trying to see what they might be planning or otherwise some way out of this she might somehow be able to do—

Her head was ringing. Time seemed to slow, for only a moment, and as it did she realized it wasn’t a soundless note ringing through her. She knew this feeling! But she didn’t have her scepter!

Apparently, it didn’t matter.

She could feel a sort of heat behind her eyes. Tensing both her hands, she cried out—“Whirlwind Retribution!”

She thought, _Tyrell, please get out of the way._

It was immediate. In a second, a familiar nebulous wind, although missing the usual starry shrapnel, tore into the hotel lobby. The gangbangers were thrown off of her—she could have cried as she felt their grips torn away, and then she was standing again.

Turning, a Whirlwind formed a low ring in the center of the lobby, the blast having knocked most either back or into it. There were a few who remained inside, though, albeit disoriented. Her eyes darted around—where was the scepter?!

On the floor, she found the big guy with the dice tattoo still clutching it in his sweaty hands, rubbing his arm angrily over his eyes. She darted forward, grabbing onto it only to shriek as one of his hands flew up and grabbed her wrist. On reflex, she swung the toe of her boot out into his temple. He slumped.

Taking up the scepter, she spiraled looking for an exit. Below the still-swirling mass, she noticed a gap of no feet beneath the cyclone. Throwing herself under, she slid across the lobby’s tile and under the attack, slipping through some distracted pairs of legs. She rolled over and scrambled to her feet, hearing the shocked bangers start to swear as she darted for the stairs.

“What are you guys doing?!” She heard Harlo bark through the rush of wind. “Go after her!”

The slam of her boots on the steps clattered around her as a rush of noise followed as those outside the Whirlwind clamored after her. Her muscles throbbed as she pushed herself all the way up, heading for the roof again.

Her chest heaved as broke out onto the roof top. Agh, dang, she’d forgotten—there wasn’t a clear way down from this building! It’s why she hadn’t checked the roof first thing. She was going to have to use some especially creative parkour to get down—

She winced as the roof entrance burst open behind her, darting behind the hotel’s giant ac unit, trying to just stay out of sight.

“She ain’t got nowhere to go,” one guy grumbled. It was a hotel, yeah, but the space was not that big. And there were only so many places to hide. It would only be a minute before they found her.

Her eyes scanned around. There was nothing hanging off this building to grab onto, but the next building over (much, much shorter) had a railing walling in the first window. If she jumped, could she reach it?

“Hey!” Barked a voice across the roof. “There she is! Ty, get her!”

Eyes widening, Sailor Boreas turned to see Tyrell, frozen, a few feet from her.

They were watching. What could they do? If they weren’t careful, this could bust them is about two seconds.

Then, Tyrell hissed, “Punch me!”

She boggled at him for a moment.

“Punch me!” He hissed again.

She punched him.

It wasn’t a great hit—course, she wasn’t especially trying for it to be. He played it as if it was, though—he toppled to the ground, holding his cheek, and she backed up before they could react and launched herself off the roof.

It was a terrifying moment. All the times her blood had pounded with the excitement of free-running, she knew she was in control, knew the limits of her own body. Just then, she was praying. The alley seemed to gape up at her like a maw.

Her hand caught the rail. The shock of the impact rattled through her arm, and she was pretty sure she nearly pulling the thing from the socket. Swinging back, she braced her feet on the ledge under the window and pulled up, catching the momentum to vault herself up.

Just barely, she grabbed the ledge of the rooftop. Feet kicking, she tugged herself up.

“Goddammit,” she heard the curse from above. “Get out of the way.”

She broke into a run, boots kicking up gravel and she heard it before she felt it.

There was an echoey crackle in the air, and she felt suddenly like the wind had been knocked out of her.

Then pain racketed across her right ribs.

She gasped, and then couldn’t really exhale because her chest was clamping down on the shriek that wanted to come out. Hand flew out and her side _burned._

Was she...was she _shot?_

Her ears were ringing. She kept running.

She lost track of the lots that passed her. By the time she found a building low enough to drop off of moments later, she had no idea if they were still behind her or not.

The garbage cans in the alley clanged together as she clipped them dropping down. Immediately, she twisted to the side, wrenching a sharp yelp out of her and she searched her side in the dark.

There was a prominent hole in the fabric, and she whimpered as she pulled the fabric away from the wound. Her side was shiny, and as she drew her hand back. she saw red glinting from her fingertips.

At 2:00 AM, Rory stood in a downtown alleyway and had no idea what to do.


	12. Chapter 12

**Episode 12: The Graft and the Glamour—Or, Using Anti-Particles to Indicate the Presence of Particles**

The first thing Rory did, and it wasn’t something she wanted to do but something she needed to do, was un-transform. She felt stupid doing it, and although she knew she was healing faster in uniform (at least, that’s how she thought it worked,) she couldn’t go anywhere to get help while she was still in uniform.

Now with less obstructive clothing, she pulled her shirt up to examine the wound better. She whimpered as the angle wringed the wound, and she clamped her mouth closed to suppress the moan of pain that wanted to come out and would definitely draw unwanted attention. Hesitantly, she brought her fingers over it, hissing at the sting. She was only a little relieved as she felt the deep groove carved out just under her ribs—man, any higher and those very ribs would have been splinters and this would have been way, way worse.

It was obviously a freaking bullet wound, though.

She went to the Walmart. She was just glad that she had worn a dark hoodie stealthing her way out of the house (as if Celene wasn’t suspicious enough!), because she was able to take off her shirt underneath and tie it around the wound to stunt the bleeding, and the wet spot on the side of the hoodie wasn’t obviously red. Bad situation, though. Bad bad.

Her eyes got a little watery in the checkout because the first thing she wanted to do was go to her friends, or her Mama, have a cry about it, but.

She couldn’t.

She scrubbed the thing out ineffectively with alcohol pads in the Walmart restroom and wrapped it with gauze. Then she went home.

As she crept in the window, Celene was already waiting for her, her tail flicking anxiously. “These ‘nighttime strolls’ aren’t good for you, you know. You’ve been out all night! Missing this much sleep is obviously taking a toll on you and—Aurora?” The cat stopped, moon-luminous eyes caught on the spot where she was holding her side. She stood. “What’s wrong? Why are you limping like that?”

“Shhh.” Rory passed a hand over her head, using the one not covered in blood. “I got it handled, little cat.” That was a damn lie.

Quietly as she could, Rory made her way to the bathroom with her bag of already opened medical paraphernalia. A Walmart bathroom wasn’t exactly the ideal place to patch yourself up, and she needed to get this in a more managed way until she had the chance to look for a treatment guide online. She knew she had peroxide around here somewhere.

The bathroom light filtered muggy yellow down on her, making it hard to distinguish what was pus and what was peroxide foam, but she had to get this cleaned.

_“Is that a bullet hole?!”_

Rory jumped about three feet in the air, looking up in horror to see Mama standing in the bathroom doorway. Rapidly, she peered from Mama’s wide eyes back to the wound, but she was just too tired and too panicked to come up with any good excuses. “Uh!”

Her mama bustled in the door. She wrenched the hem of the hoodie away from her and up, exposing the wound where it was red and oozing. “ _Aurora Grace_ , what in God’s name have you been doing?! My baby.” She inhaled sharply, eyes wild, and Rory hated that she was making Mama scared like this; this is exactly what she’d been trying to avoid. “We need to get you to the hospital!”

Rory’s eyes widened. “No, Mama! It’s fine! I got it patched up!” If she took her to the hospital, the other girls were going to start asking questions, even more so if she happened to run into Mallory while she was there.

Her mama stopped, and leaned back. Her face was hard, her normally jovial rounded cheeks doing nothing to distract from her scrutiny. “And where the hell did you get a bullet wound? Who’s shooting at you?” She pursed her lips, she Rory couldn’t tell whether they were trembling from anger or from the threat of tears. Oh, lord, she wasn’t trying to make her mama cry. Stiffly, she said, “Have you been getting mixed up with those gangbangers that have been causing a ruckus in town?”

Rory’s heart stopped, not only because she was sort of hurt her mama could even think she would fall into that crap, but moreso because of, in a way, how _right on the mark_ that guess was. She may not have been running for that gang, but they were the ones that had shot her. “Mama!” She shot back indignantly. “You know I wouldn’t ever do things like that! Don’t you _know_?”

“I don’t want to think you were,” Mama said coldly. Reaching over, she poured some peroxide on a cotton ball and reached back for the hoodie. “Let me see it.”

She dabbed at the gouge while Rory closed her jaw tightly, holding back the tears that stabbed her eyes. She couldn’t believe it. Did Mama actually think she was the kind of girl who got involved in that stuff? Then again, she was, wasn’t she? For different reasons.

“You were obviously out for some kind of reason,” Mama said lowly. “Traipsing about in the middle of the night. I know I taught you better than that! And right now? I told you how dangerous it is to be out alone. What am I supposed to think, Aurora?”

Rory sniffed, keeping her gaze firmly locked on the shower. She scrunched her brow up and her lip wobbled; she felt like a little kid. She almost wanted to tell her: that she was out there saving people, about Tyrell, running around with those dangerous guys in the name of justice like she never would have done. But no, she couldn’t tell her that. Either thing. “Mama, I swear, I would never do stuff like that! I just went out for a run and I ran into these guys wandering around. I ran away, but they must not have like me being out there because they shot at me.” She bit her lip. “I didn’t want to scare anybody, so I tried to fix it up myself.” True, and not true. _God, please forgive me for telling another lie tonight._

Her Mama said, “Well you _sure as hell_ scared _me.”_

Rory pursed her lips. What else was she supposed to say?

After a moment, her mama gave a long sigh. “Girl, what were you thinking? You are so lucky this was just a graze. You can’t be wandering the streets at night! What would I have done, if they found my little girl on the sidewalk in the morning?” Mama took her shoulders, squeezing gently. “I couldn’t bare that.”

She was actually crying now; Rory could hear it, even though she couldn’t look at her. She was crying too. She reached up, scrubbing the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of the bloody jacket. Lord, she hoped she didn’t have blood on her face.

As she finally made herself look back, stomach feeling like one big stone, she saw Mama shaking her head. “This is getting ridiculous,” Mama grumbled, leaning on the sink counter. “First they come out firing guns in the middle of the night, lurking on the corners. Now, they’re shooting at people for walking like we owe ‘em something?” She shook her head. “Huh-uh. Not today. Not my little girl. First thing in the morning, we’re going to the police station.”

“Mama,” Rory protested.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Mama said. “Enough is enough of this mess.”

They finished patching her up, the atmosphere hurt and ugly. She was physically and emotionally exhausted by the time she dragged herself back to her room, her eyes sore with tears.

Celene descended on her like a heat-seeking missile.

“Aurora? Aurora, what happened? I heard you and your mother arguing—”

She couldn’t do it. Sniffing sharply, the tears came bubbling up with the vengeance, and she crashed painfully onto her mattress, burying her face into Celene’s fuzzy side. She hiccupped softly, way, way too tired of carrying all this, it just wasn’t stopping. She was scared, and in pain, and it just had to come out.

Celene stiffened under her assault. Slowly, the cat sat back down, letting Rory cry on her like a baby. “A-alright. Well then. It’s—it’s okay, Aurora. I don’t know what’s wrong, but, whenever you’re ready to talk about it, I’ll be right here. It’s okay. Just...just let it out. I’ll be here.”

Rory’s head ached.

Mama was a woman of her word, and the next morning, a Saturday, Rory was marched down to the station. Dread coiled in her stomach like some alive kind of beast. Not a snake. Too small. Maybe like the old kind of pithos-serpents.

Mama screamed at the officers inside. “They’ve been creeping into this city like every other group of killers has, and what they hell are you doing about it? For all I seen you people driving through our neighborhoods, you sure don’t seem to be doing much—”

The man at the front desk sighed, looking bored. His expression made Rory recoil all on its own, and then the guy spoke. “Ma’am,” he started, the ranks of cops in the pens behind him staring up front at the spectacle. “We’re doing the best we can. We have people looking into this, and maybe if your kid didn’t want trouble, she shouldn’t have been running the streets at night.”

Mama bristled, and _she_ bristled, hearing the same implication her mama had made the previous night. At least she sounded like she _cared,_ though. “That’s _it_?” Mama screamed, her voice reaching an octave Rory had rarely heard. “These people are out there shooting at our children, and all you can tell me is _you shouldn’t have been walking?”_

The guy furrowed his heavy brow. “Look, I don’t know what you expect us to do. You might think there’s some sort of magic button we can press to make all the thugs in this city pull out, but there’s not. These sorts of things take time.” The man set down his coffee, leaning forward. His pudgy fingers squeezed together looked like a pack of hotdogs. “We have maneuvers in place, but if we try to move too quickly, it’s just going to get more people killed. These kinds of folks lash out when they feel like they’re being threatened. We can’t just burst into their active zones guns blazing like everybody seems to want these vigilantes to do that are running around.” The man’s mustache twitched. “All I can tell you is to stay out of the streets at night.” The guy gave her a nod, but if he thought that some acknowledgement was going to make her think he cared now, he was wrong.

Especially after that rather pointed mark he hadn’t known he was making at her. She was trying to help people—anonymously, it minimized risk! It wasn’t like she was waltzing in there in broad daylight whilst there were people out and about.

They left the station, her mama steaming, and Rory feeling slightly guilty with the knowledge that she had gone out to knowingly put herself in danger. Towards Mama, though, not that jerk.

The most frustrating part was that she knew they _did_ have plans going. Like Tyrell—plants in the gang that would help to sus out their secrets. They sure don’t mind putting _them_ in danger. Reluctantly, she understood the strategy, but she also understood that they were just not doing enough. That’s why she was out there in the first place.

“Unbelievable.” Mama shook her head as she marched them both back down the street. “By the way, you’re grounded.”

Rory shot her a look. She waited to pull that out until now?! “Mama, no, come on, it’s summer! I learned my lesson.”

“Until August,” she continued.

_Aw, what?_ That was nearly a month!

Mama held up a finger. “You can be out during the day, but you have to be back to the house by five.”

_Five?_ Rory’s stomach sunk. “Narma doesn’t get out of her internship til’ five.”

Her mama’s face softened. “Then she can come over to our house sometimes. But you have to ask first. This is to keep you safe.”

Man. This was going to make things so much harder! Something else occurred to her. “Carmen’s party,” she said, and Mama looked at her, unimpressed. “It’s the last week before August. Narma was making me a dress and everything! She’s worked so hard. Come on, Mama; it’s at Carmen’s house.”

Mama sighed hard. “Fine. But that’s it! No other exceptions, I mean it girl. You got to prove I can trust you again. Your social life is not more important than your _life_ life, no matter what you think.”

Rory sighed. “Yes, Mama.”

She supposed she should have seen this coming. This was just adding salt to the finger-width gouge in her side, which still ached. Not to mention that Mama wasn’t going to be the only one on her tail after this mess.

She peered behind them, where a little orange face peered from around the corner of a nearby alley. If she had thought Celene was going to find out what she’d been up to without throwing a full-on conniption, well, she’d been wrong. 

“Eyy,” Narma gave a small cheer, beginning to clap as Mallory rose from the hospital bed. The other girl flipped her off.

“Yeah yeah, the incredible achievement of climbing out of bed. You’ll need to register me for the Olympics immediately.”

The girl had been stuck up in the room about three days longer than anticipated. Apparently, the splinters had nicked one of her intestines, and they ended up having to go back in pretty quickly to repair the tear. Mallory hadn’t been happy about it at all—with how reckless the girl was consistently, it wasn’t a surprise she’d been walking around with part of her intestine hanging open.

Luckily, they’d been able to go and in and seal the tear up without too much trouble, so Narma didn’t feel too bad about teasing her about it.

Mallory stretched, wincing as the stretch reached her middle. “So, are we heading over to Rory’s now?”

Carmen pointed to the chair firmly as Mallory tried to head for the door. “Huh-uh. You’re getting wheeled out of here, you. Nice try.”

Mallory groaned, but didn’t try to put up any additional fuss before sitting in the wheelchair. “Ehhh fine. I suppose I can let you guys wait on me a little bit longer. Just try not to look too awestruck in front of the residents; shit’s embarrassing.”

Narma thought she secretly enjoyed the attention. Knowing what she knew about the girl, she had probably been brushed off a lot.

“I’ll try to restrain my enthusiasm,” Carmen said dryly.

“Yeah,” Narma snickered. “That’s where we’re headed. I need to grab pictures of you guys in your dresses before the party.”

Carmen led them to the car, a decided drag in her step. “I can’t believe it’s almost time already—just a few hours! I’m lucky that my father let me come out to get you this morning, honestly; he’d rather I had been orchestrating this from the moment I woke up.”

Narma could see the bags under the girl’s eyes. This had to be a lot of pressure, and she knew Carmen had a history of performance anxiety, to say the least. Man, had the concert really only been a few months ago?

At least she was talking about it, though. That was progress.

She said, “I knew that these stupid parties were a huge production, but I had no idea how many arrangements would have to be made. It’s been a _pain_ trying to get everything all arranged.”

Mallory grunted. “I still think it’s pretty crazy that you are putting on a big fancy party like that _while you’re in highschool_. That’s some Gatsby shit right there. If there’s not at least two chandeliers and a car in the pool, I’m going to be sorely disappointed.”

“It’s all for the business anyways,” Carmen sighed. “Maybe I would be more excited about it if it were for something I cared about at all.” 

Mallory _ooohed_ indulgently.

They took Mallory down to the lower floors, where she eventually had had enough and left the wheelchair before she ever got out on the curb.

“Thanks again, by the way,” Carmen sighed, peering over to her as she climbed into the Lexus’s driver’s side seat. Man, Narma really needed to learn how to drive. “I really appreciate you making us all dresses. I know that had to be a ton of work.”

She shrugged. “Hey, as I said, I had a project due anyway. Gave me something to focus on.”

Besides...everything else.

For instance, this was far from the first time they’d made the collective trek to Rory’s house in the past few weeks. What was up with that?

Not that she had a problem with hanging out at Rory’s house, but Rory was still acting weird! It hadn’t stopped since the last time she noticed. She said her mom had grounded her for going out at night, but somehow she didn’t think that was the whole story. A month seemed like a long time for such a punishment, and Celene had been on her heels every time she and Rory had spoken since then. Today, it was more because she needed a fitting and Rory’s mom was more willing to fill her house with kids than her own parents were, but still. It was bizarre.

If that weren’t enough to worry about, she still had yet to hear anything good from Manual, and it had been weeks. She was beginning to believe that spark had been destined to die out before it went anywhere.

So the internship was at least something else.

She was really proud of the way the dresses had come out. They were so different from her usual style, they were almost unrecognizable. She had tried to keep a running theme between them, though. She thought the girls were going to be surprised.

Rory jumped up as she heard the girl’s commotion at the door. “Back here!” Rory called.

A sort of contentedness set into her when the bustling of a bunch of teenagers filled up the hall, and then (almost) all of her friends were there. “I come baring fantastic dresses,” Narma called out, cheers being called out behind her. Rory held open the door as they shuffled in. It had really been a minute since they were last able to chill without some kind of crisis happening.

“This is going to be great,” she said, and she could _breathe_.

The gouge in her side was almost healed, but she could tell the thing was going to scar. She had hoped that magic powers would have found some kind of way around that, but apparently not. She was just hoping and wishing and praying that Narma’s dress hadn’t had any crazy alterations since the fitting

Celene sat loafed in the window, her tail flipping back and forth as she watched them. Celene had insisted on coming with her everywhere since the whole incident. Rory knew on some level she had been going back on the promise she had made to her during the whole pithos incident—that she wouldn’t let her be excluded—but she also knew she had been doing it for little cat’s protection. Apparently, she had really done it, though—once she had finally gotten around to an explanation, Celene had been almost cold with her. She hoped she had just scared her, though. She didn’t know how to fix ‘mad,’ especially when she knew darn well she was going to be doing this thing for the foreseeable future, whether Mama approved or not. There was too much at stake.

...was she being selfish about this?

Rory had to physically snap herself out of the hole she was dragging herself into. She shook her head, and when she opened her eyes, she jumped to see Narma standing right in front of her. The other girl raised her pierced brow. “You good?”

Rory blinked. “yeah, yeah, no, I’m fine.” Putting a hand around her, Rory led Narma into the other room. “Alright. Let’s see those dresses!”

Narma booted up the camera as Rory emerged from behind the partition. Carmen and Mallory gave a w _hoooo_ , and Narma gave herself a little clap as she lowered the camera. “Heeey,” she called out as Rory smoothed the dress out, the bright colors standing out against her dark skin.

“Okay,” Rory said, “this is so not what I was expecting.”

“Damn, it’s almost like I know what I’m doing.”

It came out just as she intended, though, of all of them, she had worried about the fit on Rory the least. The dress had a maxi, body-con fit, which in and of itself was a bit outside of Narma's signature. She usually went with the more fit-and-flare and boxy styles typical of traditional Indian styles, but for this particular project, she had tried to go for styles that felt more organic to her "clients." Maybe that's because the dresses were for people she knew? Ah, regardless, it looked great.

She had never worked with tie-dye before, but the vertical crimping in yellow-orange along the length complimented Rory's slender figure. The girl was fit, so there wasn't a lot of work needed to make her look good. Rory turned, examining herself in the mirror. "Dang. Okay, I see you." After a minute her brow furrowed. “Hey, aren't these the colors of my uniform?"

Narma blinked. That...hadn’t been a conscious choice, but duh, that must have been exactly where she got the scheme from. "I was trying to use the planets as inspiration. I must have gone in that direction subconsciously."

She had taken an ombre affect as a thread throughout all of the collection, and the dress's golden striped bursts that seemed to flow from the marigold color to the vibrant orange was really bringing out the golden in Rory's skin, even at the top, where the short sleeved overlayer burst in buttery golden. "The fit is perfect," Rory shrugged.

"Nice," Narma checked a little check off of her list. She already knew her own fit. "Now if only the two of you go just as well."

“I promise to make it as difficult as possible,” said Mallory dryly.

“I wouldn’t expect any less. Picture time."

They used Rory's partition as a background--the pictures actually looked pretty good, despite the dim lighting. "Nice."

"Make sure to credit us as your models," Rory winked, coming out of her appropriately muse-like pose.

Narma snorted. "Just don't wait up for your paychecks."

Carmen's dress would have been a little closer to Narma's usual silhouettes, except that the upper chest and arms where entirely shear. The dress was emblazoned with flowers, mostly in the cool gray color that, as a matter of fact, did also correspond to Carmen's uniform accents. How had she not noticed that? Even so, she didn't regret her design choices—the other jewel-tone flowers which were mixed in with the more frequent gray brought a pop of color to the dress, which for the most part was a nude tone close to Carmen's skin. Just like the other, the tan transitioned to that same cool gray as it neared the bottom of the dress.

The fit also looked pretty good, though she wasn't surprised it was easier to fit girls with trimmer proportions like Rory and Carmen. Mallory and her own more generous figures had required more precision, though she had had plenty of time to tweak her own. "Looks good," she said. Her eyes drifted to the hem, which was skirting dangerously close to the floor. "May need to take up that hem a bit, though. I thought we might."

"This is really pretty," Carmen murmured looking over the dress. She eyed the hem skeptically as well as she watched Narma move in to mark the alterations. She raised an eyebrow. "How tall do you think I am?"

Narma made a non-committal noise, placing the pins where she needed them. "Eh, you know. 6'5. 6'8."

Carmen rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on now. I'm only, like 5'9."

Rory whistled. "Dang!"

"It's not that tall!" Carmen threw her hands up.

"Face it, Carmen. You're just going to have to accept your fate as ambassador to the clouds. The echelon of pure legs. The Patron Saint of towering over shrimpy girls. Guide us, oh wise one,” Mallory quipped, slumped by the window and petting a reluctantly grateful looking Celene.

"Sorry, I can't offer you any advice," Carmen said wryly. "I'm not your patron saint."

"Oh, snap!" Rory laughed.

"I've been betrayed," said Mallory.

"God, when was the last time anyone said 'oh snap?'" Narma finished the pins. "Okay, take that off and I'll bring up the hem before the party."

"I say what I want," Rory said.

When Mallory pulled her own dress out of the bag, Narma could see the apprehension on her normally dead-pan face. "Oh, shit. Narma, this is a dress. Like, a dress dress."

"Yes, that was kind of the point," Narma said. "Do you not like it?" She'd seemed okay with it when they were talking over the basic concept before, but it occurred to her then that Mallory may not have totally understood what she was proposing. Fashion was...not exactly the girl's strong suit.

Mallory shook her head shortly as the tail of the dress slipped out to fall to the floor. "It's not that I don't like it, it's just...a bit outside my comfort zone. Not my usual style, you know? I guess I was...I don't know what I was expecting."

"Try it on," Carmen nudged her shoulder, and Mallory moved for the partition.

"Going," Mallory said absently.

She took the picture of Carmen's dress against the partition as Mallory changed on the other side. It looked good on film. She thought the colors translated well enough from the references of the planets she had used, and hey, maybe that's why the color schemes were similar to their uniforms. She knew there was a reason she had been drawn to using violet shades in the ombre of her own dress; she guessed she knew where that had come from now.

Rory stood beside her, looking very, very nice in her dress _. Good job, myself._ She looked over at her. "It's nice to have us all together like this," Rory said quietly, leaning on her shoulder.

Narma leaned her head back, a warm affection permeating her chest cavity. "We hang out all the time," she countered softly.

"Yeah," said Rory, "but there's been so much going on. It's nice to just have...a night, you know?"

Narma furrowed her brows, turning towards Rory more directly. "What's up with you lately?"

Rory blinked at her, eyes brightening as though she were coming out of a daze. Just as quickly, though, she resumed her place at Narma's shoulder. "Just tired," she said. "I miss you guys sometimes."

Aw. The statement hurt a little bit, though--she'd been having to spend so much more time at the internship now, sewing and making copies and sitting in on demonstrations, it felt like she hardly saw everyone sometimes even though she knew that wasn't true. "We miss you too," she murmured.

Rory, specifically. Not to mention everyone else.

She peered over to Carmen and perhaps a bit louder than strictly necessary she called out, "Speaking of ‘we,’ did the girls end up saying they could come?"

Carmen's big ole' doe eyes turned mischievous, and matching her exaggerated volume, she said, "Oh yeah, Sylvia said they're going to be there no problem."

Behind the curtain, there was an audible fumble and a muffled exclamation of _fuck_.

Carmen leaned back against the wall. "They might be a little later than us, though. Gwen's got a summer class to teach before they can come by. They're bringing their own dresses, of course."

Celene had been oddly quiet, though she seemed to be taking an unexpected interest in the fitting with how pointedly she seemed to be scrutinizing their cloths. "Hm. These dresses..." Celene pipped up eventually from the window.

"What is it?" Carmen prompted from where she had taken a spot by the window (still standing, no offense Celene but it was possible Carmen was even more aware of the cat hair in here than Narma was.)

Celene squinted her slit eyes, placing a paw forward consideringly. "The design of these dresses reminds me of something, but I'm not sure what. Maybe something from the past?"

Narma peered around to the other girls. "Am I getting critiqued by a cat?"

Celene puffed up, which was a little bit hilarious. "I'm not just a cat, you know," she said. "But that's not what I mean! I'm referring to your past lives."

"Wait, what's happening?" Mallory called from behind the partition.

Narma tried to process that. "So you're saying I stole these designs from the past?" Positive point, in that that was one more tick in the ‘hey, reincarnation is real,’ box, but also a little disheartening if these weren't original. What the fuck?

Celene blinked. "Well, no, I'm not necessarily saying you didn't create these designs. I'm just wondering if you may have been subconsciously recreating designs you made in your previous incarnation."

Carmen raised a hand. "That's pretty cool, actually. Have you been remembering anything more from back then, then? I know the last time I remembered anything was when we fought Elpis and Pandorana, when we remembered our planet's names? It would be good if we could find out more."

Narma slowly shook her head. She supposed it didn't count as being referential if she were merely referencing herself. Damn, she wished she knew, now. "No. Not that I can remember."

It would be good, though. She thought back to Rory's question at camp: why were they here, on this planet? There had to be a reason. It was just going to have to remain a mystery, she guessed, until she could get her memories to cooperate.

"Okay, this...this feels weird."

They turned back to the partition, where Mallory was emerging.

The dress itself was relatively simple. In the front, it was actually the shortest of any of them, the high of the high-low hitting just above her knees (Mallory didn't seem like a ball gown kind of girl.) It was a v-neck empire in navy, but like the others, it's color gradiated to a warm tan near the bottom at ankle-length. The color scheme had been pulled from her planet, but the palette reminded Narma of the sky at dusk while she was working on it. She was hoping the navy shade wouldn't clash with Mallory's hair by being too similar, and indeed it did not.

And also.

"I am a fucking artist," Narma said firmly as Mallory swished the ends around noncommittally.

"I have no idea what to do with a skirt," Mallory said, letting the material flap out around her.

"You wear it," said Narma. "Seriously, though, that suits you really well." After a moment of consideration, she added, "You can throw a jacket over it, if that would be more comfortable."

Which it might. She'd had the measurements but she hadn't realized how much of a chest Mallory actually had. She was always so layered up. Girl was well-endowed, though, damn. The part of Narma that preferred to create a more modest silhouette was giving herself a side-eye, like, really? Even so, if she didn't kind-of-maybe-potentially still have a boyfriend, she might be giving Mallory a second look. Hm.

"You do look great," Rory threw in.

"Yeah, seriously," Carmen nodded. 

"I need to shave my damn legs," Mallory grumbled. She looked up. "Can I wear boots with this?"

"What do you mean by 'boots?'" Carmen said suspiciously.

"I have a shoe suggestion, actually." Narma went into the duffel she'd brought with her that housed her own shoes and other camera equipment. She pulled out the monstrosities that she had had in the back of her closet for a while, but she'd never found the occasion for.

"What the hell are those?" Mallory came towards her, but she sounded marginally more excited. She took the boots, tan and faux-leather (she was a Hindu with standards, after all,) the cut-outs giving the impression of straps. "What kind of Xena, warrior-princess..." she trailed off, grabbing up her socks again to pull the boots on.

"I noticed we were the same size," Narma folded her arms smugly as Mallory tugged on the boots, "and I thought those might be to your liking."

"These are atrocious," Mallory said. "I can work with these."

In the end, it was only the hem on Carmen's dress and the length of the straps on Mallory's that needed adjusting. She could bang that out in like an hour.

"You're a life saver," Carmen sighed as they made their way back out to the car. "Now, I just have to finalize the decorations, oversee the food coming in—oh, damn, there was that woman who cancelled I needed to update the seating arrangement for..."

"Whoa, whoa, okay girl, you're good," Narma whistled, ushering Carmen out Rory's front door. "You got this. Give us like, three hours, and we'll be out there to help."

Rory fiddled with the hem of her replaced t-shirt. "Man, it sucks that we can't just head over now. All that stuff you've got to do has got to be easier with more people."

Carmen gave a soft, pained noise. Wryly, she said, "Yes, unfortunately my father thinks a bunch of teenagers being around for preparations might get in the way."

Mallory spoke from behind them, returned to her trench as quickly as she had been able. "You should remind him that you're a teenager too, sometimes. Graffiti 'ASS' on the wall or something, really go wild. That'll teach 'em."

Carmen gave her a reprimanding look. "Yes, I'm absolutely going to do that."

"Good," Mallory said as Carmen headed out the door. "There she goes," she said, "going off to war to spare the rest of us." She saluted halfheartedly, apparently uncommitted to the bit. She lowered her hand, looked between them as Narma shut the door. "So. What are we going to do for three hours?"

Narma snorted. "I have to sew.” She shook the camera. “And I have to get these pictures printed to drop off at work.”

Mallory pointed at her "Fair."

"You get to help." She handed her the dresses.

"Ok. Wait. What?"

Erin moved through the front door, holding it open with her hip as she let the little girl come through. "You have your lunch?" She shut the door once she’d moved through, carefully locking it behind her. She hadn't gotten around to installing a security system, and so she always made sure to lock up when she left the house. Thiers wasn't the best neighborhood, only what she could afford as an engineering student, so she knew she had to keep everything secure.

Emma picked at her hair pins. "Yeah." She pulled her backpack on over her tiny shoulders, and Erin adjusted it more snugly.

They had a little time before getting to school, so she thought she'd pick up breakfast for them on the way. Moving to the car, she watched Emma move around to the other side to get in the passenger's seat. She opened the driver's side, and a burst of summer humidity rolled out in waves. She called over, "Let's give it a minute Em, it's a little too hot in there."

She leaned in, turning the air on and pulling down the shade.

On the other side, she heard Emma gasp. "Puppy!"

_Cute._ Erin leaned back out of the car, the AC blasting. "Do you see a puppy, sweetheart?"

As she stood up, confusion fell over her when she didn't immediately see Emma standing on the other side of the car. Turning, she only had a second to comprehend that Emma was no longer by the car, but heading towards the road, where a dog was running along the other side.

She didn't see the car barreling down the road, chasing after it.

The car didn't see her either.

The scream leapt out of her, body paralyzed with horror _. "EMMA—"_

Erin jolted upward at her desk in the back labs. Adrenaline coursed through her body like some sort of horrible venom, shaking her limbs. Once her vision came into focus and the white walls of the private lab came into focus before her, she groaned and plunked her head into her arms.

She'd had a horrible, horrible night.

Maybe it was because they were getting so close. That had to be it. She hadn't had these nightmares in years; having them resurface now only served as a grim reminder of what she was working towards.

But God, she needed to sleep.

But here was not the place. Any minute now, one of the other researchers was going to bust in and start questioning after her health, and questioning of any kind was the last thing she needed.

Her Benefactor would have said she was reluctant to accept help because she was allowing her own psyche to punish her into motivation. Erin didn't know about that, or wasn't willing to hear the psychoanalysis out of her own mouth, thank you very much, but she was a scientist, not a psychologist.

She emerged from her cave to mingle with the others, asking after the improvements they had made that revealed how little she had been listening to their explanations earlier in the day, and they looked nervous.

She managed to drag herself through the rest of her work, and in the last few minutes of the day one of the interns shuffled her way into the room with a bag over her shoulder. Peering behind, she saw it was the Indian girl with the silver hair—Narma, she remembered. It would have been difficult to forget that introduction after she had so hideously thrown it into awkwardness. She was surprised the girl even came back. "Hello again," she called, her voice echoing through the room. Even her echo sounded tired.

The girl hesitated as she came in: she heard the door open, and then take a minute to close. After a moment, though, the girl approached her at the desk with a packet of paper clipped images. "Hello again, Professor Morringer," she piped. She sounded in good enough spirits, and Erin turned to look at her.

Narma handed her the packet. "I got the photos of the pieces in the collection," she said, handing them over. "Are the photos good enough, or will you guys need the originals?" She rubbed at her arm. "They need some, ah, slight alterations, but I wanted to make sure and get these to you before the deadline."

Erin took the photos. Unclipping them, she flipped through the designs, recalling the sketches Narma had given her. They seemed to have turned out rather well--the girls, probably her friends, seemed to be fairly well-fitted for the garments, and from the proposal the girl had given her, it seemed she had been able to construct them as intended. "They look good," she said finally, wishing she had something more constructive to say other than to debate the garments' performance at extreme temperatures, which she doubted was the point. "The coordinator should be getting back with you in a week or so for your critique. She probably will want to see them at that time, but for now, I'm sure she'll be fine with the photos."

She looked a bit disappointed (see, this is why she wouldn't have recommended herself as representative for the department, but her work ethic had her pinned,) but accepted the explanation. "Oh. Well, thanks."

Erin felt a stab of empathy at not being able to be more engaged, and she lifted the photos consideringly. "I'll add them to your folder right away, so she can see them," she said, and Narma nodded with a bit more assurance before heading out.

Taking on these extra projects was getting to be a bit of an excessive load. At this point the job that paid her wages was more or less an extra project. Finding the artifact was all that mattered. She could feel the time getting closer, and her future self emphasized the importance of getting this done as quickly as possible. Not that she didn't want that herself. She hated the thought of Emma being alone and scared and dead for longer than she had to be simply because she hadn't worked hard enough. Her fingers dug into her scalp. What kind of mother would she be?

Still, out of pure necessity she found herself bringing her files back and forth to whatever task she happened to be working on at the time. Her work lives were bleeding into one another. What a terrifying thought.

As she fired up the monitors, her Benefactor answered the signal with the promptness she always did, and she began to work. She still needed to leave notes on the students’ projects (which she'd almost forgotten) so she could turn them in to Angela in the morning, so those files were open. At the same time, she combed through the records of students at Garfield High School with extreme prejudice, looking for any factors which might eliminate potential suspects.

"Are you serious?" Her future self scoffed. "You have to know one of these things is more important than the other, Erin. You're wasting time."

"I have responsibilities," she snapped. "Do you want our daughter to be without a place to sleep when we see her again?"

It was a low blow, and she knew that her future self wasn't buying it for a second. They both knew that Erin's priorities were just as skewed towards Emma. The only reason she wasn't dropping everything else was that she hated the thought of Emma seeing what a wreck she'd become in her absence. She had to keep things going. If she let herself slip, it would only be a matter of time before she fell apart entirely.

She combed meticulousness through the files—it was hard to know what might eliminate a particular student from the pool, except eliminating kids whose recorded weights didn't seem to lend to the body types of the figures she'd seen in the recordings. Of course, who knew how accurate the figures in these files were anyways? This was turning out to be a much more difficult endeavor than she had initially imagined, even with her future self shouting suggestions from behind her based on what she knew.

She flipped between one file and the next, the student projects all but abandoned for extended periods of time, splayed on the table, flipping through them to add notes occasionally in a weak attempt to keep her divided attention productive.

Then seemingly out of nowhere, her future self made a noise from her observational space in the screen. "Wait a moment, go back."

Startled, Erin flipped back a page of names, one she hadn't even flipped in a while with a raised eyebrow. "Can you even see the names from there?"

"Not the names," the Benefactor groused, then breathlessly amended, " _the photographs_."

Taken aback, Erin moved back to the file she had just flipped closed, leaning the flap up slightly to let her other self see. "These are just student projects from the internship program. I didn't realize you were interested in design."

_"Let me see those."_

Her Benefactor's voice had fallen hush, after pausing a long moment Erin rose from the desk, taking the photos with her. Removing the paper clip again, she flashed the dress photos back to her partner, flipping between them.

"Jesus, the luck—Erin, that's them."

The photos stilled in her hand. "What?"

" _That's. Them_." Her crow's feet crinkled in concentration as she studied the photos. "I'm sure of it. The models in the pictures are them."

Erin turned the photos back around to examine them. These—these were that girl's file from earlier. Narma.

Disbelief sinking in, she moved back to the file with a sneaking suspicion she already knew what she was going to find. She flipped back to the copy of Narma's limited resume the project had demanded. Scanning, her finger found the 'education' subhead.

_Garfield High School._

Erin's hands smacked to the table, the photos crinkled between them. This whole time, she'd been right there, _they were right there_. The girls in the photos looked so young, posing exaggeratedly for the camera expressions care-free. Just kids. Jesus, but wait a minute—

Heart jumping, she turned the photos over to their reverse sides.

She couldn't help the little scream that bubbled up from her chest.

Model credits.

_Narma Anand_

_Rory West_

_Carmen Rodriguez_

_Mallory Dunbar_


	13. Chapter 13

**Episode 13: Homing Device – Or, a Reasonable Explanation for a Disease Cluster**

Carmen had known from the very beginning that this party was going to leave her a bucket of stress. She had a meticulously choreographed list of things she needed to do and the exact times she needed to do them, and she still had absolutely no idea how she was going to get it done. She was counting down the minutes until her father left the house to go to a last-minute signing he hadn’t been able to reschedule. She might be able to actually concentrate once he wasn’t scrutinizing her work from a distance whilst doing a bad job trying to seem like he wasn’t.

Eventually, once she had twined ribbon around all the banisters and reworked the damn seating arrangement, he approached like he hadn't been planning on doing it all along. He peered around as he moseyed up, adjusting his lapels. "The arrangements look...good," he said, but she could hear the hesitation in his voice.

Her stomach was a pit.

He lowered his gaze to her, and he gently grasped her shoulders, giving them a short squeeze. "I will be back in time for the arrivals. I trust you have this all under control."

She lowered her chin. _Do you, though?_

He gave her a short nod and kissed her cheek before heading for the car. She sighed. Finally, the house was empty.

It was a melancholy feeling watching things come together as she completed her tasks. The business of a house much too large for her made the party's assembly feel isolating, even though she knew in a short while her home would be brimming with people.

As time grew close, the caterer called, and then the florist, who both hurried to the property. The tables were lush with plant-life by the time the other girls showed up, climbing out of Rory's mom's Subaru Legacy looking slightly cramped. It was heartening to see them.

The girls looked great—she was excited about the dresses before, but with her teammates having donned various levels of makeup to coordinate (Narma at the higher end as usual and Mallory at the other end, nearly bare-faced,) they really pulled together some Looks, if she was using that correctly.

"Oooh this is going to be so fancy," Rory chirped, eyes practically sparkling framed in bright yellow shadow.

Narma eyed her. Carmen hadn't seen her dress before, but it looked more like some of the other sketches of her work that Carmen had seen: long sleeves, and a high collar, with layers overlapping at the chest. Oh, that was the...sari style, right? She wasn't 100% sure she was right about that, but either way the violet color that lightened to periwinkle blue at the bottom layers of the dress really looked good with her hair. She also seemed to have softened her usually dark makeup for the evening. She'd really gone all out. Actually, they all looked so good this might have been a good opportunity for Narma to get her name out, knowing so many of her dad's wealthy clients were coming. Maybe this was going to be a networking event after all.

Ugh, yikes, she was thinking like her father. It was for Narma's benefit, though, so it didn't count, dammit!

"Hey," she called out, sighing. "We're getting close to time. There's just a couple things I have to cover." She backtracked through her words, then amended, "Sorry, hi."

Mallory had apparently opted for the leather jacket after all. Carmen wasn't sure her father was going to go for that, dress-code wise—she might have to ask her to take it off. The most shocking thing was the smear of bronze over her eyelids—she was really the most feminine Carmen had ever seen her. She looked good, but strange. She crossed her arms though, and the way she held herself was pure concentrated Mallory. "Hi to you too. Guess we know where your mind's at. Don't worry; it looks great already. It's extravagant as hell in here."

Carmen grimaced. "Yeah, well, the fancy parties are really just excuses for my dad to brag, so, enough is never enough," she swung her arm demonstratively. _And_ make business connections, she guessed, but then why does it always seem like the same thirty people showed up?

Mallory wiped her palms together. "Well then let's kick this party's ass, then," she said, one of the passing caterers giving her a scandalized look.

They plated the hor d'oeuvres in the grand foyer in record time, Mallory snapping instructions at the harried caterer that had the poor girl saluting for lack of any sense for what to do otherwise. They laid out the silverware with the seating, Narma and Rory laughing over some of the guest's names that were scheduled to show up. "Please," Narma choked, doubled over, "please tell me this guy's name isn't actually Randall Mangina."

" _Randy_ ," Rory suddenly gasped, and Narma wheezed.

Carmen smiled uneasily. "Please don't mention it, Randall is pretty self-conscious about it." Oh, this was definitely a mistake.

Even so, with only about a half hour to go, Carmen declared preparations finished and now only the anxiety of waiting for their guests to arrive remained. "I'm going to go get changed." She dabbed sweat from her forehead—ugh, she was going to need to freshen up before anything. "I'll be back soon."

Rory was practically bouncing in her heels. "Ooh, you should let us do your makeup. Let us know when you're ready!"

Soon enough, Carmen's father had returned and the guests began to arrive. This party was fancy as heck, but Rory couldn't help but feel a little awkward lingering around the punch bowl while Carmen got relegated to introductions. She seemed to be handling it pretty well, shaking everyone's hands as they came in the frankly ridiculously large door, but Rory could see it was fake. It was in the tightness of Carmen's smile, the stiff posture she held herself at; nothing like the loose, soft smiles she gave when they were all just joking around.

Girl had warned them about this, though, so they were just going to have to wait for now.

What Rory hadn't expected was the music. Pretty soon, there was an old, floaty sort of melody making its way through the room, and she wandered as some of the stodgy old business people in suits started to dance with their plus-ones. Man, she was expecting it to be way more stuck up then this! She sidled up to Narma, whispering behind her hand, "I didn't know there was gonna' be dancing!" Dang, she really would have worn better shoes than this.

"There normally isn't," and she turned to see a weary looking Carmen approaching the group. She exhaled deeply, free from the clutches of pleasantries apparently. She visibly slumped as she came to stand beside them. "I convinced my father that having a more casual atmosphere might make the event more memorable, and give the guests a relaxed environment where they might be more open to making connections." She sighed, brushing her hair from her eyes. "Really, I just thought it might make it less boring."

Narma gave a deep _ha_ and Mallory nodded. "Playing the system. I have to appreciate that sort of cunning.”

"Dancing does sound fun, though," Rory nodded. When was the last time she'd been to a dance? I mean, sure, there had been homecoming last year but that had consisted of terrible "under the sea" theming while everybody around was being nasty. Not her cup of tea.

But this seemed like kind of a big deal. It was almost like a ball! She remembered her mama getting her some little princess dresses when she was real little, so she had kind of always wanted to go to one? But who had balls nowadays?

Carmen, apparently.

"This is the best idea," Rory whispered, clenching her fists.

Carmen blushed. "Oh, well, I'm glad you like it." Her eyes softened. "Sorry, I know this sort of thing would have been more fun if you were able to invite plus ones, but Dad was reluctant to let me invite you guys as it is."

Rory blinked. "No, no, it's cool!" Really, the only one who would have benefited from that probably would have been Narma, and with the way she had been rocky with Manuel...yeesh, maybe not the best idea. Turning, she saw a small frown on Narma's face; the same thing had probably just occurred to her. Not to be discouraged, Rory grabbed her arm, tugging her towards the floor. "We'll have fun all by ourselves!"

Narma blinked, before snickering. "Yeah, lets go scandalize some businessmen with female independence." Her eyes moved to the floor for a second, before widening slightly. Her grin devolved into a full-on smirk. "Besides, at least one of us is getting a loophole."

Rory wondered what the heck that meant for a second, before following Narma's gaze. _Ohhhh._

A familiar shock of green hair had just made an appearance at the house's entrance, where attendees were still occasionally showing up to be greeted by Carmen's dad. Once she saw Sylvia, dress a sweet-looking champagne tulle a-line, it was easy to locate her sister. Gwen's dress was midnight blue, and body-con like Rory's own, except it had a little beaded neck-loop halter for the top. Also, boy was that a high slit. Was that velvet? Damn, they _were_ getting fancy tonight! Still not as nice as Narma's dresses, but nice.

And way sexier than Rory would have expected out of Gwen, given her usual style. Not that she could blame her; Rory might have been in good shape, but Gwen was really fit. Good for her, honestly.

She turned back to the other two to see Mallory thoroughly flushed, looking stricken, and Carmen folding her arms over her chest. "Please don't drool on the dance floor," she said dryly.

Startling, Mallory shot out, "Shut up, I wasn't," but she wiped her mouth anyway.

"I'm gonna’ go dance," Rory snorted. "You guys should join us! Let loose a little bit." No time like the present, anyways.

Carmen brushed her hair back, peering around at the room of her guests. Things seemed to be going well enough. The plan with the music was working better than she'd thought, especially—sure, it made things more fun, as she'd always been a fan of dancing, but requesting that all of the attendees bring a plus one seemed to be discouraging the usual clientele from hitting on her or her friends. That had been a real concern, and not really something she necessarily wanted to explain to the others. Still, it would have been impossible for the girls to go entirely unnoticed. Even as she watched, one son-of-a-businessman was twirling Sylvia around the floor, striking up conversation.

"Shame I can't get a look at those pretty blue eyes," he said.

"Nope," Sylvia just responded cheerfully, and apparently the guy hadn't been expecting that answer because his smile turned uncomfortable and, not knowing what else to do, he awkwardly just kind of...kept dancing.

Rory and Narma were playfully waltzing around one another, saying "After you," "No, after you," As some of the guests around them looked on in bewilderment.

Carmen sighed. Maybe these guys would be fine after all.

"Excuse me," said a voice from behind her. "I was hoping I might have a dance."

She turned to see Raquel, the son of one of her father's more influential friends, holding out a hand. This wasn't the first time he had approached her and she was sure it wouldn’t be the last.

Ah, well. She had known she couldn't avoid them all. Besides, Raquel was nice enough. She just...wasn't interested. "Nice to see you," she sighed before taking his hand. Without further ado he stepped back and led her into a lazy spin, their steps moving stiffly back and forth in a dispassionate sway.

“It’s a lovely room.”

She turned to glance up at him as he spoke.

“You’re the host tonight, aren’t you?”

“If it pleases my father, I suppose.” She didn’t hold his eyes for long, before catching her tone. “And thank you,” she amended.

He wrinkled his brow, offering a skeptical smile. “You don’t seem very excited about it.”

She hummed, assenting.

She peered around to the other patrons she had invited. She spied Mr. Abernathy, staring lovingly at his rosy-cheeked wife as they made sweeping turns through the foyer. Nearer by, she spotted Gwen and Mallory indulging some of her repeat suitors in a dance—it was impossible to miss, though, the way they snuck magnetic glances at one another, never catching, but looking away just as fast with notable pining on their faces. It was so obvious.

She had never felt something obvious. She’d never had a crush she could recall, and she was jealous of them. Stupid, knowing there was a reason that they couldn’t dance together, different from the playful way that Rory and Narma made a spectacle in the middle of the room. Jealous of them for knowing.

Carmen’s eyes burned, and she blinked, restraining them. Was she just frigid? Here, she had a young man she was fairly certain was interested in her, a little pit of loneliness within her, and still she was utterly disinterested. What was _wrong_ with her? Did _his_ feelings not matter? Was there just no one good enough for her? Maybe she _was_ stuck up.

She wanted to smack herself; her hand flexed on Raquel’s shoulder at the impulse, and he made an inquiring noise. _Stop it, Carmen,_ she hissed internally. _You’re not doing this again!_ _People are getting shot and starving and living horrors; you’re not going to complain about this!_

A sudden rumble moved through the room. For a second, Carmen thought she might have made it up that she was picking up on the music through vibrations on the floor (this happened at the skating rink all the time.) But she and Raquel stopped spinning, she realized that many other guests had stopped as well, staring towards the entrance leading onto the back patio where the shaking seemed to be radiating from.

"Another earthquake!" One man shouted, and he and his partner ducked under a table. Alarmed, the others scrambled to the edges of the room as the chandelier shook.

Carmen spun, locating her father and the other girls, unsure where to go. There seem to be no clear rhyme or reason to the directions people fled, except that they seemed scared. Raquel held onto her hands, thick brows furrowed. But...something seemed odd. As she listened, the shaking she felt seemed to come in short bursts. Not a regular earthquake, but a noise as though something was pounding on the ground from far away. Her lip tugged into a frown, suddenly very aware of all the movement around her, where the windows were, where little boxes of dusk were peeking from outside.

Around the time her eyes widened, hand flying to her side where she did not have any pockets, damn, some of the guests on the far side of the room collapsed. Her father shouted, asking what was wrong, but his voice was simultaneously drowned as a horrifying groan rolled through the house.

Someone in the room, she heard Mallory's distinct hiss of "Oh, shi—"

It burst through the back wall.

Carmen shielded her eyes as glass flew in all directions like light off a disco ball. There were screams, and she dropped on one knee to the floor, feeling a notable tug as well towards the floor. Some stayed down, though. Some, near the door, did not make a sound at all.

Squinting, she saw that it had not taken the entire wall, but the door was just complete gone. It was clearly some kin to the "cryptids" they had run into before, a sloppy mass that could have played the lead in The Blob That Ate Everything, except it was covered in familiar spikes. She grit her teeth. This fleshy abomination looked like the creature that Mallory had called the miasma...but she never mentioned spikes.

Apparently, whatever (no, Mallory's theory, _whoever_ ) was unleashing these things had managed to salvage some parts from the other monsters in their collection.

The reality of the situation hit her—she didn't have her scepter. There wasn't time to analyze. She needed to move!

Just as she recalled where she had left it—in her bedroom, at the vanity where they have been getting made up for the night—she felt a hand close over her shoulder and looked up to see her father's rumpled face. "We have to get you somewhere safe," he grumbled, button eyes scanning the room as sweat beaded on his brow. 

He steered them towards the front door, standing open where several of the guests who had been farthest away had fled, but she screamed and flinched as white spikes burst out from the wall. She looked over to her father, who looked lost, but unharmed. That could have skewered them—could the creature summon that attack anywhere? Either way, there was no leaving, it seemed.

Even worse, as the creature squirmed into the room, she could feel the strength sapping from her legs. She had to figure out a way to get them out of there.

Her father whipped them around, moving them towards the interior of the house. She could see the same force was working on him as his old legs dragged the floor. "You and your friends need to hide," he whispered as the bellows of the creature washed over them. She scanned the room as she was ushered towards the back hallway: Rory and Narma were nearby, Gwen and Sylvia were blocked off by the railing and as they passed, and her father grabbed Gwen by the arm and she yelped as they were dragged up. Mallory...there, on the upper stair; what was she doing there? She seemed blocked off, the line of spikes that blocked their exit at the front door falling in line to cut off the staircase.

Before she realized what was happening, her father had thrown open the coat closet in the middle of the hall and had thrown them inside, outside the sight of the monster. At least the energy drain wasn't as bad here. "You stay inside," he grumbled, leathery face lined with worry as she and the girls stared at each other. “I'll be back."

He shut the door.

The three of them sat in darkness. "We have to get back out there," Carmen said immediately, barely able to make out the other two girls in the dark.

"That thing looks like the monster Mallory and I fought the other day," Gwen whispered, teeth a barely visible grimace of white inside the closet. "She's in no condition to fight."

"She might try," Sylvia said evenly. "She seems pretty stubborn."

"She can't afford to." Carmen frowned, cursing again that she had left her scepter in her room—ugh, she knew better than this! "Can either of you transform?"

Gwen patted the space where her chest was covered. From inside, she pulled out the Fortuna scepter. _Well, that is one way, I suppose._

Sylvia removed hers from a band around her leg.

_Okay, so one positive._

They froze as the room was temporarily flooded with light. There was a yelp and two more forms crashed down on top of them. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness again, she was able to make out Rory and Narma in a heap before them.

There was a tell-tale click from the door.

Locking. 

Carmen wanted to scream. _Ugh, great._

"Welcome," Sylvia said without a hint of sarcasm.

"Why are we in the closet?" Rory groaned, rubbing her elbow before sharply pointing at Narma. "Don't."

Narma closed her mouth, looking disappointed.

Carmen sighed, irritation ticking her brow. "Apparently, my father thinks this is the safest place to sequester us away."

Gwen spoke up, eyes widening. "Wait, he's not going to try to go after Mallory, is he?"

Carmen bit her lip. "I don't know." She indicated the sisters. "They have their scepters. Do either of you?"

Narma groaned, throwing her hand over her face. "Dammit, I knew I was forgetting something!" She limply pulled out a little opening in her dress. "I built a pocket and everything."

Carmen raised her hands. "What are we going to do, then? We can't break the door down without drawing a ton of attention to ourselves.”

Narma added, “And if these guys go out there without backup, they’re going to get murderized.”

Gwen kneaded the bridge of her nose. “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

Carmen punched a fist into her palm. “We have to get out there. My father is too stubborn—he's just going to keep putting himself in harm's way." She tried to breathe where her chest was getting a bit tight. This was her family, her home. She wasn't used to this getting so personal. "--not to mention all the people who are unconscious."

"Yeah, that thing shooting spikes all over the place is a bad scene." Then, with a burst of energy, Rory shot straight. "Oh my gosh, hold on, I have an idea!"

Carmen followed her line of sight to the vent near the ceiling of the closet.

Moving over, Rory bounced on her heels in front of the grate. "Somebody give me a boost!"

Gwen made the noble sacrifice of having Rory's generously unheeled feet perch on her shoulders as Rory reached up to unlatch the grate from the vent where the air filter sat inside. Removing it, Rory rose a few inches to be properly inline as Gwen grunted, lifting her up. Cupping her hands around her mouth, Rory leaned forward, whisper-shouting into the open vent, "Celene!"

Gwen hissed, "Wait, you brought the cat?"

"Of course I brought Celene," Rory scoffed."What kind of party do you think this is?" Leaning forward, she projected again, voice echoing along the metallic corridor of the vent's interior. "Celene!"

Sincerely, her charge had to have made some of the most reckless choices she had ever undertaken in the span of the last few months. Perhaps that was Celene's own fault--not insisting to keep a closer step, choosing to naively believe that a girl of such gumption as Aurora was simply taking evening strolls every night. Still, the disregard the soldier had shown for her own life left Celene with a combination of worry and anger such that she had hardly been able to speak a word to the girl. Even now here she was, sitting out this party at another moment she should have been doing her duty as Aurora's guardian and watching over her. It wasn't as though she didn't want her to have fun. She just...wished she would have been able to be there to make sure.

She was napping on Carmen's bed when the muffled shouting reached her. She snapped rigid for a second, unsure she had not made the noise up, before she heard it repeat itself.

_Aurora?_ She would recognize her voice anywhere, and the subtle hiss made her think she was probably trying to keep herself unheard. She frowned. If she was calling her--things weren't great between them right now; it had to be important! She tried to ignore the little rush that peeked in her mind at the idea that she might be helpful.

Celene stood. The room door was cracked, but she might have sworn the call had come from elsewhere. She kept listening, ears twitching in concentration as she tried to pinpoint where it was coming from. After a few more seconds, she identified the source of the noise as the vent near the bedroom's ceiling. _What on earth?_ Leaping up a series of shelves along Carmen's headboard, letting her close to the opening. With a determined flick from the end of her tail, the two little latches were easily disbursed, "Aurora?" She called back. "What is it? What's happening?" From somewhere that seemed far away, she could here a rattle of commotion. It was only a moment or so before Aurora's voice came back to her.

"Celene! Thank goodness. One of those Cryptid things showed up and now we're locked in the closet."

"...I'll be honest, I'm not quite following that sequence of events, but what can I do to help?"

Aurora's voice reverberated in the ventilation. "A lot of our scepters are in that room." She opened her mouth, but the instinctual admonishment that bubbled up was cut off before it began. "I know, I know! Do you think you could bring them?"

Celene's nose twitched. She sighed. "I can certainly try." She turned to the room, then back. "Are all of you in there?"

"Mallory's trapped on the stairs, as far as we know," Aurora called back. We can't see anything. She might have hers, actually, knowing her, but she can't fight right now."

Celene called back, "Alright, hold on."

Turning back to the room, her eyes went to the pile of bags and belongings left on the bed. After a moment or two of weeding through them, she found Aurora's, but not the others. Popping into the vent, she padded along, using her instinctual awareness of Aurora's position (for as much good as that had done her in the past) to weave through the vents to her position. She peeked her head into the closet, and in the darkness she made out the figures of her charges crammed inside. Aurora jumped back up when she arrived. "Celene!"

"This seems a tad ridiculous," she sniffed as she dropped Aurora's scepter to the floor. "I couldn't find Narma's or Carmen's though." She eyed the members she had only once spoken to before. So, was she to assume they'd had theirs? Embarrassing. "Hello to you two."

"Hello, kitty." Sylvia greeted primly, gaze wayward.

"It's Celene."

Carmen's piped up, "The vanity! In the side room. I think I left it there.."

Narma groaned. "I bet mine is there too. It must still be sitting on the counter."

Celene nodded sharply. "Understood."

Celene retrieved the scepters from their spot, ferrying them back to the girls in the closet.

The girls thanked her, and Aurora turned back to the vent. "The door is locked. Can you get it open?"

Leaving the room, she exited the ventilation and padded down the hall. The room outside was a horrific scene—humans scattered about the floor, a massive...thing shifting around the perimeter of the room. Peering across the room, she spied Mallory on the staircase still, and there was an older human trapped in the space beside her by vicious looking spikes. Ah, she couldn't tell what sort of state he was in. Her soldiers needed to get these people to safety as quickly as possible! Turning around, she eyed the closet lock, and her stomach sunk. She swiped a paw over the slats in the door. "Girls. Can you hear me?"

"Celene," she heard Narma answer on the other side. "Can you get it?"

"No," she said grimly. "The lock's a hand-turn; I can't grasp it."

"That's okay," she heard Aurora say from a little further away. "I think I have another idea. Can you girls block the door?"

After the sound of shuffle, Celene anxiously waiting outside, a brightness flared from beneath the door.

Sailor Boreas dropped down from the vent in the bedroom. Dust flurried out behind her as she got her bearings, and she looked up to see Celene waiting for her. "Thanks, girl," she said, standing. The marmalade tabby turned away, and her stomach twisted. Apparently, girl wasn't 100% ready to forgive her yet.

"Things don't look good out there," Celene huffed. "We have to hurry."

Sailor Boreas slunk along the hall out to the closet, where she turned the little latch. She glanced back, paranoid someone would see them, but she didn't see anyone awake enough to look. Where was Carmen's dad? "Okay, guys," she whispered. "One at a time; we don't want to get this thing's attention."

She darted back around the corner and, one by one, her other team mates joined her: Sailor Egeria, then Sailor Gyges (jeez, this was going to be Sylvia's first real fight! What a way to start off!), Sailor Fortuna, and Sailor Concordia. "Decima's still AWOL," she whispered, which garnered her an odd look from Fortuna, for some reason (ah, Gwen probably wasn't used to hearing their titles, maybe. Sylvia, on the other hand, didn't bat an eye.)

"Sailor Concordia." Celene's tone was serious. "I saw your father trapped by the stairs as well. I'm... not sure if he's still conscious or not."

Carmen/Concordia nodded stiffly, jaw clenched.

After formulating a plan, they braced themselves and darted into the room, hoping to take the monster by surprise. Sailor Boreas resisted the urge to make a quippy one-liner and immediately called out, "Dire stellar gust!" _Please let this work!_

Behind, the others and Celene waited. They just needed to stay out of sight for now.

The wind whipped through the room, circling the perimeter and then shrinking towards the center of the room. The only reason she thought she hadn't been taken out yet was because the thing couldn't see her, the dark wind casting a filter of haze through the room. As the loop shrunk, Narma came out behind her and called for a Typhoon, striking the wind-stream as Boreas gathered it up.

The whole thing with the miasma, the way Gwen had explained it, was that it put some kind of spore in the air that sapped energy for it; it didn't have to touch you. If they could dampen the spores and send them all falling to the ground, maybe it wouldn't effect them—or at least, that was the current theory.

As the typhoon blasted downward, Rory thought she felt pretty normal. Yes! The downside was that as the Gust faded, the monster could see her again. She heard Narma dart away just as spikes blasted up from the floor at her feet. Stumbling, she leapt up and took to the railing of the leftmost stairs. If she could keep moving, the thing couldn't pin her down.

She eyed the dozens of still forms clustered on the far side of the room. _Let's just hope this thing doesn't get too happy with those spikes._

As discussed, Sailor Concordia rounded the corner next, thrusting out two fingers. _"Harmonious Bellicoso!"_

The lyrical attack flowed out towards the Miasma-Urchin hybrid, and just as quickly Concordia had to roll out of the way as spikes burst up around her. Boreas watched, praying for some kind of impact, but the gouges that appeared in the creature’s pearlescent flesh filled themselves back in right away.

Sailor Boreas winced. _Dang._ They'd been hoping that one of their regular attacks was going to do something to this guy, but seeing how resistant all of its siblings and previous incarnations had become to their attacks, they thought it was probably a long shot.

Across the room, she could see Mallory watching them, still in her gown. Boreas didn't know if she was just trapped or if she had gotten hurt, and not knowing just made things worse. She winced as the room rumbled behind a line of spikes, and they all relocated, trying to find a safe spot.

Man, she really hoped this wasn't going to become one of those games with squares.

As planned, Gwen moved up next. She drew her arm back from behind one of the pillars of the entry way before turning to fire. Boreas barely caught the name of the attack—"Celestial Roulette!"—before a series of projectiles shot out from Fortuna's arm as though she had fired a weapon. It impacted, between the spikes that the creature's back was covered in and wedging between them like splinters, causing eruptions inside.

"No, that's not it," she heard Gwen say. It was the last thing she'd been hoping to hear. They had a tentative plan, but with the way that the other soldier's powers worked, almost all of it was relying on chance. They didn't have that kind of time. "Alright soldiers!" Rory/Boreas called out—boy, that was weird! Had she really never called them that before? "Regroup! We have to do the extraction!"

Sailor Concordia looked at her—argh, too many people, freaking Carmen, Memory Space Brain! She nodded shortly, but Rory knew she was as appreciative as she was worried. "Thank you."

If there was any chance he hadn't been affected yet, they had to take it. Time to go get Carmen's dad.

Then everyone else.

Sylvia had never been in a battle before.

Well, no, not exactly true. She'd broken her leg in a bus when it was attacked by a giant wrecking ball, so she was going to take that as points towards battle experience. This time, though, there were monsters actively attacking her, and so she found herself a bit more personally offended.

She probably would have been fine, except for the noise. The sound that this thing made was just...grating, in the same way that people whispering too breathily or the sound of velcro were. Like a rasp up her neck. It kind of made her want to scream, so that needed to stop immediately, if not sooner.

This thing was big, mean, and sort of resembled a spiny oak slug if it was entirely white and pissed. The spikes, though? No, no, that was just rude.

Carmen probably didn't appreciate the property damage either. What can you do.

"Okay," she called over to the others. "What do I do?" She found herself just sort of...standing there, ineffectively.

"Hold off for a sec," the girl in the blue and violet, Narma, called back to her. "We need to get Mr. R before we can do anything else."

Sylvia nodded. "Gotcha." Turning, she quickly mapped out a path to the little spiked off area that Carmen's dad and Mallory were supposedly quartered off in, and then proceeded to dart over.

Gwen apparently didn't like this, much like she didn't like a lot of things she did. Ugh. "Syl--Gyges! Watch it!" She could hear the alarm in her voice, which was just. So. Infuriating. You'd think she was walking out into traffic or something.

This was a creature. Creatures had patterns. If it could attack faster, it would be doing that!

"I'm watching," she snapped evenly as the line of spikes followed her like a trail of dominos.

You can't put a spike on a spike, so she braced on the spike's sides. There was some kind of shielding around her legs, right? At least that's what the cat said, and so she wasn't too worried about getting skewered. She caught a couple of protesting voices behind her, but she had better things to focus on.

She peered down at the cowering man in a suit, dwarfed by the massive spikes surrounding him. "Hi there," she said. "This is some party."

The man peered up between his hands. Not unconscious, at least. That was good; her quip would have fallen a bit flat if he had been. "Who--who are you? What's going on?"

"There's a big, ugly monster in your house," she said.

His bushy brows furrowed, his face reddening. "Yes, I noticed!"

She held a hand out. "We should probably leave." Oh, wait. Peering back over her shoulder, she called, "I could use a distraction here."

"Got you," Carmen called back before running to the other side of the room and starting to fire off that musical attack.

Sylvia grit her teeth; this was really a lot of discordant noise. She ground the fingers of her free hand together aggressively; she's been grateful that her uniform came with something more like bracers than actual gloves.

Still, when she heard the grinding upward crunch of spikes bursting up from the other side of the room, she knew its attention had been drawn away. The beast moaned cacophonously, and the wave of noise that passed over her made her neck violently twitch.

The man grasped her hand; his hand was sweaty, which she didn't like, but oh well. She ushered him up from between the spikes, but his frame was too wide to slip through.

"I'm stuck," he wheezed anxiously, stumbling back from his place precariously jammed between the spikes.

Hm. "This won't do," she said, mostly to herself.

Well, she had attacks, didn't she? As Sailor Gyges. She just didn't know them quite yet. Fishing into her skirt pocket, she pulled out the scepter, it's pale green lacquer shining back at her. The way Gwen had described it (frightened, huddled up in her bed in their hotel room shivering because she'd seen the girl she liked get skewered, and she'd felt so helpless. Sylvia thought she'd feel satisfied the day Gwen finally got knocked from her high horse, but not like that. She hated that vacant stare, she didn't have the words or the script for that, that wasn't a Gwen expression), the attack had just come to her. That seemed like a pretty efficient training integration system; like a tutorial in a video game.

Guess she should just wing it, then!

She held the scepter out. "You'll probably want to get yourself out of the way," she told Carmen's dad and, horrified, he balled up near the floor.

"W-what are you going to do?" He asked her, eyes bulging in the periphery of her vision.

Might as well be honest. She shook out her shoulders. "I have no idea."

She was used to being overly aware of subtle sensations—the texture of a shirt, the wind blowing a little too close to her ear. But this was more like a tickle in her brain, like knowing the meaning of a word, but not being able to quite recall it.

And then she did.

The _Willow Whip_ formed in her hand as the words left her lips, the instinctual back-swing resolving into a loop that kept the tendrils off her. Peering down at the weapon, "whip" seemed a little inaccurate: it was more like one of those many-limbed weapons, the cat-o-nine-tails, although this looked like it really could have been made from leafy willow branches. She clenched her hand around it, and it felt more like worn leather. _I wasn't expecting you to be something so physical, but I'm not upset about it._

She let the tresses fall elegantly from her hand. "I have to assume this is going to do something," she told the shivering businessman, before swinging the whip back, and then forwards again.

The talons lashed forward, and like one of those sticky hands you won at arcades they wrapped firmly around the spike. On pure intuition, she yanked back and stumbled—the spike, which seemed almost stone-like, crumbled at the force. She turned her new favorite toy over in her hands. “That will work.”

"Great," the man whimpered. "Now can you get me out of here?"

"Yes!" She ticked her neck to the side, cracking it. "Give me two minutes," she said lightly, "and you'll be free to fly away, to some boardroom or something. Wherever the corporate elite roam free."

Okay, Gwen was totally wrong. This was the best thing that had ever happened to them.

Except for the tingling, all under her skin. That, she didn't feel good about.

She managed to corral the man to his window whilst the creature wasn't paying attention very well. She shoved the window up, before sweeping her hands to indicate it was time for him to go.

He hesitated, then climbed through, stumbling as he landed in the nicely tailored shrubbery (what a shame!) "There you go."

He leaned back through the window, expression crumpled in the corner of her eye. "Please," he said. "My daughter, and her friends. They're locked in the closet. They cannot get hurt, I don't know what I'd do."

She frowned—well, he would be worried about Carmen, wouldn't he? He didn't know. The thought made her think of Gwen’s parents, Glen and Martha. Were they worried about her and Gwen? She honestly felt a little bit bitter about having had to just up and leave. Why couldn't they have just believed them? She didn't want to abandon them. That was a terrible thing to do.

She swallowed, remembering where she was. Now was not the time.

Stiffly, she smiled back, just off-center of his face. "I'm sure they'll all be okay. Now, you may want to call an ambulance."

Turning back to the battle, she could see the others running around, and she could feel the weighted feeling falling back into her legs. _Oh, come now._ This was honestly a really cowardly attack, and she would have told the monster so if it wouldn't have also drawn its attention.

She heard a crumpling sound from above, and a couple of crumbs of stair-structure crumbled down beside her. Looking up, she saw a familiar face staring back.

Mallory adjusted her glasses. She was holding her leg uncomfortably, but otherwise appeared okay. "Okay," she said, "that was honestly hilarious. But I might need a little bit of help here."

Sylvia used the Willow Whip to break down the spikes keeping Mallory trapped, and the girl brushed the dust off her dress. "Thank you." She looked up, and Sylvia got the impression even without seeing her eyes that she was about to say something stubborn. Mostly, because that was Mallory’s default mode. "Now, how can I help?"

Gwen could feel the spores creeping back in. The only conceivable advantage to this guy was that he didn't seem able to haul himself around the room the way that the original Miasma had been able to through the forest. Those spikes looked deadly sharp, though, so maybe the design trade-off seemed worth it.

Still, the massive gelatinous structure of the thing oozed over the fallen party goers as it moved, so slowly, to try and get closer, and every time she held her breath, thinking that there might be a repeat of the Mallory situation (And where the heck was Mallory?!) If one of them got sucked in, how on earth were they going to get them out in time?

If they weren't already...

...she didn't want to think about it.

But then it would just pass over. Apparently, it wasn't there for them. She watched it ooze off a woman in a purple dress, and her chest throbbed with anxiety. It was only Narma's bursts of torrential rain that was stopping it from advancing. No, stop getting distracted! She had to do something about the numbness in her limbs. "This thing is getting feisty again—we need a wind burst, Sailor Boreas."

"You got it," the girl called back from the upper level, where she'd moved to escaped becoming swiss cheese. Behind her, Carmen wiped sweat from her brow, the constant barrage from the music attack the only thing putting a dent in this mother.

Her pulse thumped. Only Mallory's attack had banished the Cryptid last time, and she was out of commission and who-knows-where. How were they going to get rid of this guy?

"That means you too, Sailor Egeria," Rory called, darting behind a support beam as spikes rose from the floor. Which, by the way, where were they coming from? The ceiling underneath looked undamaged.

Narma grumbled in agitation, dodging around spikes as they erupted around her.

Gwen watched her other teammates--her attack might have been ready to go again, but if there was even a slight chance of hitting the abomination, she needed a clear shot. "Any way you guys might be able to score me an opening while you're at it?"

"Eh," Narma fired back, which told her nothing. "You might have to hold on that one. Yeesh!" She yelped as a spike narrowly missed her right leg. "I'm just trying not to get punctured here."

"Hey," she suddenly heard from above.

Gwen looked up.

"What the hell are you guys doing up there?!" She called up, alarmed to see Sylvia (in uniform) and Mallory (still in her very nice dress) leering from the balcony above.

"We're here to help," said Sylvia, and she leaned on her arms, peering out over the floor like a cat on a TV center. "And I think I know how I can get you your shot."

She explained, and that had to be the stupidest plan Gwen had ever heard. "That has to be the stupidest plan I've ever heard."

Sylvia's brows furrowed, gaze astray as she stuck her tongue out. "You're just mad you didn't think of it."

Mallory watched from above as well, and the monster moved agonizingly slow through the foyer in Gwen's periphery; it could notice them at any minute. "I deal with a power-based weapon all the time," said Mallory. "You saw it. These things are solid."

Gwen bit her lip, staring up at the two with the most disapproval she could muster. "...fine. But we need to let the others know."

"That's fine with me," said Sylvia, popping up and dodging an immediate barrage of spikes as though they'd been there all along. Ugh, that girl had to stop being so reckless!

Mallory didn't move, hidden by perspective with the very spikes the beast had tried to nail her sister with. "Hey," she said again, the usual dead-pan back in her voice. "You guys be careful. I'll warn you if I see anything."

She'd rather the other girl stayed out of the fray entirely, but she supposed it would have been rare thing that would have stopped her there. Even so, her heart thudded a little at the intensity of her stare. "We will," she promised, and turned to make her move.

They ran to the front of the room, where Rory and Narma were assembling to perform another mist attack. Up above, Carmen on one side and Celene, of all people, on the other were distracting the creature, peppering Carmen's upper floor with an obnoxious amount of spikes. Gwen eyed them anxiously. "We have to do this quickly," she called to the others as she ran up. "Those guys are going to run out of room eventually."

"No joke," Rory whistled holding out her hands.

"Hold on," Sylvia called forward, the willow-branch looking weapon at her side rustling as she ran. "We need to be in the middle of the room when you cast that."

Rory's eyes flew open. "What? That's way too close!"

Sylvia shook her head. "No, we have to. We have a plan that might let us get a hit in on the jelly monster."

"We're not calling it that," Carmen called from above, perhaps on reflex at this point.

Rory and Narma, looking depressingly at home in their Boreas and Egeria uniforms, turned to each other. "...Okay," Rory assented. "But I can't promise you that thing's going to let us get that close."

"Oh, it will," Gwen clenched her hand at her side as Narma turned to her. "We're what it's here for."

Narma's expression was unreadable. "Okay, you need to elaborate on that later, but for now it's time to kill the spawn of slimer."

The four of them moved towards the center of the room and, just as Gwen had anticipated, the creature let them right through. Narma and Rory looked to each other incredulously, but Gwen kept her guard up. She had no idea if the absorption thing was the only other option this thing had, but she knew that this thing wanted the energy. Before they could do anything about it, they were going to have to feed it.

And it was eating, for sure. She could see the thing taking on a sort of luminescence, could feel the strength being zapped from her body. It was as though she were moving through water. It was becoming more and more difficult to stand, but they had to be here, in the center, where the light of the chandelier poured down over them.

The beast groaned. Above, Carmen and Celene made noises of confusion as the creature stopped assailing them. It turned--slowly, like the murderer turning around to be revealed in a horror movie--and it opened its maw, moaning wetly.

Gwen shuddered as spittle flecked out of its mouth, opening to reveal a series of needle-like teeth. _Well, that's new._ Her stomach turned. Hopefully, the feeding wasn't more literal than she had realized.

Something occurred to her, and she turned to her sister with a sense of unease. "Are you even going to be able to hold it the way we are now?"

Discouragingly, she saw hesitation in Sylvia's usually unfettered expression. "Well, it's too late to think about that now," Sylvia wavered.

Rory and Narma stumbled back as the thing slithered towards them. Promptly, a line of spikes shot up behind them. The four of them weren't going anywhere. "You guys ready?" Rory called back, grimacing as the horrifying mass crept towards them.

"Yeah," Gwen shot back, and it was like setting off a tripwire as she called, _"now."_

"Alright! _Typhoon strikedown!"_ Narma shot the water into the air and Rory called on her own Dire Gust, bursting a protective ring of air around them that banished the creature's spores. It gave a sickening bellow, distorted by the wind into something otherworldly. Gwen knelt down, giving her sister a boost up. As she rose in one swift motion, Sylvia used the momentum to push off and up, leaping towards the space above them.

She swung up her whip, and it caught with the efficiency of a grappling hook.

On the chandelier.

"You guys have to do whatever you're going to do now," Rory called back, gritting her teeth. "I can't hold this forever."

"It's fine," Gwen called back, staring up where her sister was now hanging by the whip from the chandelier. "Just a few more seconds. Keep it hazy!"

"I'll try," she responded.

Narma had taken a low spot in the eye of the storm, and her eyes shot wide when she noticed Gwen moving towards the outside. "What are you doing?!"

"Probably something stupid," Gwen replied, “but I've done worse." She pushed outside of the attack, wincing as the shrapnel bit into her, though it seemed to almost flow around her. Rory must have realized she was going through. Once on the other side, she met Carmen's baffled expression from the balcony above. "Hey," she yelled up. "Can you give me a hand up?"

The other girl pulled her up, watching apprehensively. From the other side of the room, she heard Celene call out. "Be careful, soldiers!"

At the same time, though, she heard Mallory's voice reverberate from a similar place above. "You're good, G—Fortuna. It can't see you."

"Great," she called back. _Whelp, now or never._ She promptly turned back around and jumped.

She heard Carmen and Narma gasp as gravity dragged her towards the floor. She felt like she was flying for a moment, but that was quickly overtaken by the utter concentration she needed to catch her sister's elbow.

They shook, Sylvia almost dislodged by catching her, and she knew the fact that Sylvia had often helped her when she was practicing making plans for her student classes was the only reason she was able to hold on. But after a jarring yank on her inner elbow as she caught her, she had both hands free.

And the creature lay exposed, where she could see it on the other side of the whirlwind.

She could practically feel the others holding their breath. From what they had seen thus far, the spikes had to come from something, and so Sylvia had reasoned the creature couldn't hit them mid-air. And this angle might give them their shot.

If they could do it quick enough.

Changing her normal orientation, she extended her free arm to make a circle, then drew back her linked arm slightly as though she were nocking an arrow.

"Hurry up," Sylvia hissed.

"Here it goes," Gwen focused, tried to call on her element without engaging the delicate balance she was constantly maintaining. "Celestial Roulette!"

The magic flashed, cycling round and round. It seemed to take an eternity to stop. But then it did, and four projectiles launched directly towards the monster--

\--only to bury in the floor as the pinkish net of magic rose around it, and it roared.

Gwen gasped. "That's it! S--Gyges, we can get down now."

Her sister dropped after her, and she saw Narma turn to them. "That's it? It can't attack us?"

"Not for a little while," Gwen said, eyeing the indicator. "But it won't last forever. We have to get as many people out as we can."

The others nodded, Carmen leaping down behind her. As fast as they could move, Rory used her wind attack to float the unconscious patrons out of the house through the giant hole the monster had made of the door way. The others carried them, pairs grabbing hands and feet, doing all they could to get them out of dodge.

They had gotten the majority of the people out into the garden out back when they got their reality check. "Guys, you have to move!" Mallory barked from above, (and, yikes, really not the time to realize how cute she thought it was when she got all bossy, Gwen, come on.) "The timer's going to run out any minute and I don't know how fast—”

There was a noise like a pop, then a groan.

Chaos.

The other girls screamed around Narma as a myriad of spikes jutted up around them in a line. Narma dove out of the way, hitting the ground with a hard smack that reverberated along her shoulder blade. Carmen landed beside her, rolling to stand as she, likewise, scrambled to get up.

Narma's pulse spiked, unsure what she was seeing as red tainted the pristine white decoration of Carmen's home. There had been no screams--the spikes punctured up through several of the people who'd been fallen unconscious on the floor.

There was a single note ringing in her head, and for a long moment the sight didn't quite seem real.

Then she felt slender fingers violently yank on her arm, pulling her behind the nearest solid object where the noise resounded into labored breathing.

Narma blinked, seeing Carmen in her Sailor Concordia uniform staring back at her. "Na-Narma?" She whispered; even now, they had to be careful. "Can you hear me?"

Narma shook her head, trying to bring back the room. "Ugh," she murmured, "yes, I--those people. Are they...?"

"I don't know," Carmen bit her lip, gaze far away and she clenched tightly to Narma's shoulder. "I don't know."

Narma couldn't comprehend that possibility. She took a deep breath, her head swimming. "We got most of the people out," she reasoned. "We can surround it now. I know we can't avoid it, it's pissed now, but maybe..."

Carmen's eyes hardened. "This has gone on long enough," she agreed. "We have to destroy it."

As they all stood on a rough perimeter around the creature, Narma heard Mallory curse from above. "Jesus Christ--this thing is fricasseeing people on the side, there! I can tell you that doesn't feel good. What the hell is going on down there?"

"We're going to combo it," Carmen shot back, before peeking out to Rory for confirmation. "We're going to combo it?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," said Rory. "I don't even know what might put a dent in this thing, though."

"It's hungry," Gwen said from somewhere Narma couldn't see her. "Narma. Didn't you say you overloaded that one thing a while ago? Got it to blow itself up?"

Narma's heart stuttered. Not exactly a happy memory--she'd gotten shocked what had to be almost to death, and then Manuel had gotten mad at her for lying about it but she couldn't forget the feeling of electricity buzzing through her fingers. "Not really a method I would recommend," she grimaced.

Gwen shook her head. "No, I agree. But maybe we can do something similar. Maybe we can feed this thing a bomb."

The others looked to one another, or approximately where they thought they might be. Once they came out, who knew if they'd get another shot? This thing had obviously forgone it's plans about keeping them alive, by the way it had thrown up the stakes without hesitation.

"Okay," Rory called back from behind her, after shrugging at her reluctantly. "We can try."

"I'll take the back," Sylvia piped up, and the rest of Narma watched with a sort of horror and awe as she darted out without hesitation.

But she...wasn't getting hit?

After a second, Narma realized she was moving through spaces that the monster couldn't see her based on the spikes it had put there itself. She wasn't being seen--and she couldn't be, if she was going to be taking the position she said that she was.

Narma grit her teeth. If she draws any attention to herself back there, she's going to invite that thing to skewer anybody who isn't already! Narma thought she'd had her share of reckless girls with Mallory.

But she was quiet, and after a moment, they couldn't see her anymore. Gwen swore. "Dammit. Okay, I can try firing on it again, as soon as I'm back. Might make a good opening."

"What the hell is that?" Mallory murmured from above, voice carried by the room's architecture.

Narma's eyes darted to her, but Rory must not have heard. "No," Rory said shakily. "We don't know that that's going to go well, and we can't take any more time then we have to." She looked at Narma pointedly, and she made a little upward whirley motion with her finger.

Narma's eyebrows flew up, but she was pretty sure what she was implying. At the same time, she thought she might have picked up on what Mallory was talking about. In the background, there was the noise of sirens rising.

"Did somebody call the fucking cops?"

"Shit," Narma heard from somewhere in the room, but she couldn't pick up who said it.

"What's the problem?" Narma's brow furrowed. She would have been surprised if no one called the police at the ruckus going on in this rich-blood neighborhood.

"They want to arrest us, that's the problem," Rory suddenly looked anxious, eyes darted back towards the door.

Narma's eyes blew wide. "Oh, shit." Somehow, with everything, she had totally forgotten that fact.

There was the sound of car doors slamming. As they all crouched frozen in the foyer, the front doors suddenly rocked with forceful knocking. "Come out, with your hands up!" A voice boomed with a megaphone.

"You really don't understand what you're asking us to do, guy," Narma fired off, and Rory punched her in the shoulder. From along the backsides of two spikes, she and Rory waited, Carmen waiting between them in her own spot. Gwen hung back behind a pillar where Narma could see her pinched expression. She probably wasn't happy about still not knowing what Sylvia was planning.

Which, fair. She couldn't exactly think of anything she might be able to do to stop the thing moving backwards. Blasting water in it's face barely stopped it from moving forwards. Just as they had planned, the rest of them prepared to move as Rory counted down with her fingers.

"Come out! Or I'm coming in," the guy barked.

Narma grimaced. "I really don't recommend that!"

"I'm counting to three," the man boomed, and Rory and she looked to each other, the sudden interloper throwing off what had to be a very carefully coordinated plan. "One," he said. "Two, three--"

The doors came open.

There was a man standing there. He was big and burly, a thick mustache on his face.

He caught sight of Carmen first, judging by his expression. Narma knew what they must have looked like to him--layered in holograph, featureless, mystical and utterly alien. His eyes popped wide like plums. "Good lord--" Spikes shot up in front of him, and he stumbled, yelping as he fell back to the stoop.

Mallory's voice called from above, where she was still holding up two fingers. "Holy shi--"

A squelch.

The creature screamed, and they all looked to each other in alarm, none of them having moved yet. _Squelch_ ; the creature thrashed and spikes shot up right along its side. Was it--was it attacking itself?

Then, she saw it. Narma could only look on in horrified fascination as a spike flew up from behind it where it had been yanked from the ground, burying in spike side down.

Sylvia climbed up on the little platform it made between the creature's spines. "See?" she said. "Not very fun, is it?"

Rory was the first one to break out of it. "Now!" She screamed, and Carmen emerged from between them, firing a Bellicoso towards the monster's wailing mouth.

"Usually, I really hate animal cruelty," Sylvia mused, skillfully grabbing up another spike with her whip to jam it in, creating another little foothold in its maker. "But somehow, I don't think you count."

"Now!" Narma echoed, and she and Rory stood beside one another, recalling the attack they could only summon together.

Rory's hands up, Narma's down.

"Extreme Slashing Vortex!"

Narma could tell Rory was raining it in. The vortex was compressed into a spherical mass, swirling, and Narma thought she could almost _see_ the horrible powered restrained in that storm. Rory met her eyes as they moved it, muscles shuddering with strain, and brought it over to intersect with the Bellicoso--

The noise was terrible, like absolutely scraping the strings of a violin. Narma covered her ears as the ball shot off, swallowed up in the monster's wailing maw. Carmen was still going, powering through the cacophony to flow power into it, more and more unbearable--

Rory let go.

The monster exploded. There was no kinder word to describe what happened to that ugly thing, it's spikes blowing out but shattering into nothing on impact with whatever they touched. The other spikes too, reduced to some sick parody of fairy dust. Globs of slime splattered in all directions, Narma barely diving in time to avoid getting caught in the debris.

Silence.

Sylvia stood up. She was covered head-to-toe in ick. "We got slimed," she said flatly.

"Ha ha, YES!" Mallory hawed from above, pointing a finger over the railing.

Sylvia stood, as the rest of them got their barrings. "These guys look really bad," she said, much more quietly. She looked over to them, eyes big and glassy.

Carmen stepped forward, slowly. "What do we do?"

That's right--this was her home. Narma swallowed. She'd invited these people here. She couldn't imagine what she might be feeling just then.

"We go," Gwen spoke up, sounding sure as they turned to look at her. She turned back to her sister. "The police are here; they'll get them help. We can't help anyone locked up."

Sylvia’s eyes brightened for a second. "I told him to call an ambulance."

Narma sighed. That was probably how the police had found out, but at least they knew someone was coming.

Speaking of which.

"Hey!" Someone shouted from outside. "The--the things are gone!"

They all froze.

Then they scattered.

Mallory grunted--Narma saw Gwen help her down from the stairs as Celene leapt down beside them.

"We're supposed to be in the closet!" Narma hissed as they ran. The other girls tumbled in behind them. " _It's supposed to be locked!_ If we're not in that closet--"

"It'll give us away," said Rory.

"What's happening, Aurora?" Celene murmured.

"We have to hide," Rory panted. "Quick," she through open the door, letting Narma and Carmen in.

"They can't see us," Gwen said, Sylvia coming up beside her. _What? Why?_

"Me neither," Mallory hissed, holding her leg.

"Okay, okay," Rory said. "To the back!"

"Where did they go?"

The owner of the house wicked summer sweat from his brow. "Please, my daughter is inside, some other young girls--"

"We need paramedics immediately--"

Rory watched Sylvia duck in the bedroom closet, Gwen and Mallory shuffle under the bed--her eyes turned up to the vent--

The police filed in. "Come on, we have to catch those freaks--"

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Rodriguez called into the manor, his voice reverberating, “I didn’t know they were looking for you—"

Rory shuffled through the vent, the pounding of her knees echoing around her— _please, don’t let them recognize me--_

Mr. Rodriguez bumbled up. "My daughter’s in there."

Turning the lock, they opened up the closet.

A group of girls in fancy dress stared back at them, eyes wide.


	14. Chapter 14

**Episode 14: Invasive Species – Or, Utilizing a Type of Echolocation**

Rory climbed out of the closet with Narma and Carmen as the police checked the house over. Her heart was beating about a million miles a minute, relieved that the cops hadn't spent any more time than they had on the girls that had been locked in the closet for the duration of the attack. She heard Mr. Rodriguez murmur about having thought he’s had more girls in the closet.

Whoops. Still, he seemed to brush it off given everything that had happened.

"I'm so glad you're alright, Carmen." Rory peered over to see Carmen and her father embracing, both of the two looking worse for wear even though Carmen's dress had been saved by her transformations. The older man patted his large hands on her back. "This is a nightmare."

Carmen pulled back from the hug, and Rory could still hear them talking in hushed voices. It almost felt like she shouldn't be listening. This was between them.

"Are you okay?" Carmen asked. "You're not hurt, are you?"

"I'll be fine," Mr. Rodriguez grumbled, patting her shoulder.

Carmen whispered. "What about everybody else? Are they going to be okay?"

He hesitated. "They'll do everything they can."

Rory watched the paramedics ferry in and out of the house, praying for the people who were leaving on stretchers.

Mallory could hear the agitated chattering of police from under the bed. They would have to leave sometime, but it seemed for now she would have to batten down for a while longer. She shifted, settling more comfortably on her back.

She turned her head, attention brought back to her companion in the cramped space. Gwen stared back at her, and she felt her face flush. "Hey," she said.

"Hey," Gwen murmured. Her voice seemed loud in the tiny confines. ‘It was weird to Mallory to realize this was the first time she'd spoken to her out of uniform that night. The transition between the two states was always jarring, but right at that moment, it seemed like two different worlds.

"How's your leg?" Gwen prompted after a moment. "You seemed to be walking a little funny before."

_Oh, yeah._ The adrenaline of running (read: hobbling) from the police had momentarily distracted her from the ache in her ankle. "Yeah," she hissed. "I think I might have twisted it while I was traipsing around those stairs. Stupid. I just need to wrap it, though."

Gwen's eyes flicked down. "Did you tear your stitches?"

Mallory froze as she realized Gwen's hand had come to her side, as if to check. Normally, it would have been a matter of just her shirt, but just then she was wearing the dress and there was no seam. Still, Gwen's touch on her side left a tingling sensation over the brushed but covered skin. _Get a grip._ She swallowed. "No," she said. They were still tender, but she knew they would be hurting a lot more if she had actually managed to rip them open. "They're fine." She paused, and she needed a distraction from the sound of their breathing. "You guys killed it. You did really well out there."

Gwen glanced down, "Mm, I mostly stayed out of the way."

Mallory scoffed. _Um, bullshit_. "Yeah right. That maneuver with the chandelier? Flawless. Way more people would have gotten hurt if you hadn't intervened."

Gwen snorted softly, and dust wisped around them. "If you say so."

It was silent in the room, and they listened to the people walking around in the other room. Even so, Mallory wasn't even going to try and deny the way Gwen's presence anchored her attention. Even in just the light filtering under the bed, she kept catching on the little details of her features. The way her nose was slightly crooked, the way the addition of mascara made her lashes look even longer, which, how? Fucking witchcraft. Even after a battle, she looked impeccable, the way the fray had loosened her hair from its bun only making it look more artfully messy. And the dress didn't hurt a damn thing.

Her gaze rose, and the heat in her face only increased when she noticed Gwen staring back. She didn't look away again, though. She cleared her throat. "You did look--you do look. Really nice tonight."

"Thanks," Gwen murmured.

Mallory was kind of glad she didn't immediately return the compliment out of obligation. She found platitudes kind of annoying in practice, and Gwen was better than that anyways.

Jesus. She actually really liked her, didn't she?

Mallory kept looking at her for a long moment, before taking a deep breath. "Do you want to go out sometime?"

Gwen's eyes widened. 

Mallory jumped as something fuzzy touched her arm.

"Soldiers," Celene hissed, furry head ducked under the side of the bed behind her. "The coast is clear. It's safe to come out now."

"Thank goodness," Sylvia's muffled monotone sounded from the bedroom closet as she shoved it open, covered in goo (jeez, she'd totally forgotten she was in there!). "Any longer and these two were going to traumatize me. Thank you, cat."

Mallory had never gotten out from under a bed so quickly in her life.

They moved to the other room to regroup. Gwen didn't answer her question explicitly, but she also didn't stray far from her side, so she thought she might have not humiliated herself too bad.

They had a lot to talk about, though.

"This is bad," Rory murmured as they circled up. "They've never attacked us personally before. Carmen, I'm sorry."

"Nothing we can do now," Carmen rubbed her arm. "We just have to deal with it."

"It confirms a theory that we've had for a while." Mallory crossed her arms, not any more pleased about this than any of the rest of them. "It's safe to say they're tracking us. The fact that this guy was able to pinpoint an _address_ is scary; I can only imagine it's because we were all here. All of us." Her other teammates looked either surprised or uneased, some both. "Even if these people don't know exactly who we are, they're tracking up better together."

"When were you going to share this theory?" Narma narrowed her eyes.

Mallory shrugged. "I wasn't trying to keep it from you. I just wasn't totally sure about it. The first place these things showed up was a ten minute run for you guys, right?"

Reluctantly, Narma's shoulders relaxed. "Mm. Guess you're right."

Rory only looked more determined, though. "If this thing is getting good enough to find our houses, guys, we need to be extra careful. The last thing any of us needs is for one of us to get caught alone again."

They disbursed throughout the room, borrowing some extra clothes so they could help clean up the pearlescent muck coating every surface. They had a lot to think about.

"...your sister was an absolute savage, by the way," Mallory mentioned as she and Gwen scrubbed from a bucket. She turned to Sylvia, who was pretending she wasn't listening. She pointed. "You're scary."

Sylvia lifted her chin. "Thanks."

\--

The most recent tracking effort came up with a residential address.

It couldn't have been more perfect if Erin had written it herself. She had names, she had faces, but knowing exactly where to look had been a more delicate prospect.

It wasn't needed. Just as she had originally intended, her creation did the work for her.

She knew where to look.

She needed an excuse to be there. It seemed juvenile, but she couldn't just show up and expect them to let her in.

Of course, the electrical grid in the city had been especially fickle recently, hadn't it?

Being homed at the Institute, Erin had easy access to any number of sewing machines. All it had taken was to leave a patch running on manual at the embroidery machine and a stolen janitor's uniform, and she had everything she needed.

She tied her hair back, but didn't work to otherwise mask herself. She was average looking enough; anyone on the street wouldn't look twice. And it wasn't as though she were particularly known.

She approached the house with her work bag, the janitor's uniform large on her frame but not too much to be believable. She could see crews moving in and out of the backyard, though the entryway had also taken obvious damage by the way it was splintered on all edges, the door held almost comedically poor in place. The mailbox said Rodriguez.

Climbing the stoop, she knocked.

After a long moment, a harried looking man in a full suit came to the door. The handkerchief in his pocket was rumpled from obvious use. "Yes," he said shortly, "how can I help you?"

Erin cleared her throat. "Hello, sir. I'm sorry to hear about the...events you had to endure recently." It was only partially true; her fingers tingled with anticipation at being so close. "I won't take up much of your time, and I do apologize for the short notice. I've been sent by the county to check for any damage to your electrical circuit. Have you experienced any outages or flickering lights since the...incident?"

The man looked her over for only a moment before sighing and gesturing her in. "You might have called ahead. Come in."

She cleared her throat, gaze moving through the demolished room as she entered. She had never actually seen her Specimen's power at work before. It really was incredible; the advancements 1000 years brought were amazing. If she had access to the resources--! "Yes," she shook her head, reminding herself why she was here. "I do apologize. Short notice, you understand."

The man grunted. He took a breath. "Well, I haven't noticed anything yet."

She brought out the tool. "That's a good sign. This shouldn't take long. I just need to test your outlets to see if any of them are giving off excess electrical voltage. That will tell us if work needs doing, or if your circuit is still connected with the grid safely." She eyed him over her glasses.

"Be quick about it, please," the man sighed. "I have several other appointments today, and they called ahead."

"Of course."

It wasn't actually a voltage reader, of course. She had used the same tracking system that her Specimens used to alter an EMP reader, though on a much more refined scale given that she had an approximate location.

Mr. Rodriguez walked behind her as she worked, which wasn't ideal, but she could work around it.

She had worked through most of the house without any spikes when they came to a plush-looking bedroom. It was a nice room: there were roller skates by the desk, and a walk-in closet with a vanity. On a cork board, her heart jumped when she saw pictures of the same girl from the floral gown picture, most of them posting with the man who was tailing her. "Your daughter?" She asked on impulse before she even though about whether she should, which she decidedly shouldn't. It wasn't useful to know more about them on a personal level. She couldn't afford to care. Who knew what she might have to do?

"Yes," he said, sullen.

"I hope she wasn't...?"

"No," he crossed his arms, shutting her down. "She's fine."

"That's good." Best to end that line of questioning there. She didn't want to know this girl. She only wanted to know what she knew.

There was no indication of an increased energy footprint, which was disappointing. If the Treasure Box would have been anywhere in the house, she would have expected it to be there. That was one possibility off the table.

And she would have thought that it had been a wasted trip, except that then she spied the post-it note on the cork board.

...slowly, she packed up her bag. "Mr. Rodriguez, I believe I've seen enough. I appreciate your time."

And then she left.

It had been a weird couple of days.

After helping Carmen clean up her house after the monster had gone absolutely ham on it, Rory got home to an email from Brenda saying she was back in the city and was just about ready to open shop again. It was less notice than she would have liked, and she didn't especially relish the idea of coming in for a shift after a night of dancing and monster battles, but she figured it would give her something to do while Narma was at her internship and Gwen, Sylvia, and Mallory were busy pouring efforts into finding out who was trying to track them down. Plus, Carmen was busy trying to tape together her house.

So, here she was.

At Clarke’s Convenience.

Cashiering.

She sighed, leaning on the counter. It was kind of weird. She hadn't been here since the pithos were attacking, when Brenda decided it was too dangerous in the city for her tastes and she needed a break. Brenda could have picked a more ideal time to return, though, seeing as things were as bad as they always were.

The woman had just shaken her head when Rory told her the state of things. "Well, bad news is I can't exactly afford to stay away any longer. So, do you think you could shelve these chips for me?"

Rory eyed the exit. She could see the faint orange stripe of Celene's fur at the edge of the doorway where she had insisted on coming with her. Man, was she ever going to stop being mad? She thought after all the hubbub the previous day they might have sort of made up a little, but girl didn't even trust her to go to work by herself.

The tail flicked idly through the glass.

Rory pulled out her phone.

_Man, have you guys found anything yet? I'm dying here._

Mallory.

_Ah, the woes of retail service. I do not envy you._

_But no. I can tell you that the signal came from the north_

_side of the city, but that doesn't tell us much._

_With all the power surges happening, it's hard_

_to say where they might be going to._

_But we'll keep looking._

_And the people who got carted out yesterday?_

_..._

_Still in critical condition._

_I'll keep pestering the nursing staff to give me details._

_or, I might ask Carmen to do it. They seem to like her._

_Let me know._

She blew out a breath, rustling the magazines in the stand in front of her. Her team was smart; they had figured out the pithos last time and they could figure out this. She just had to be patient.

The bell rung above the door, and she looked up to see who had entered. There were two guys there, muscular, chatting with each other. Something about the guys seemed vaguely familiar, but she had run into nearly everyone in this city at one point or another. She slumped, taking another look at the time. Glancing back up for a second to see if they were still looking, she froze as she caught a glimpse of the guy's tattoo as he turned the corner.

A shark.

She was stricken for a moment. No—no way. It couldn't be, right?

She ducked down as they turned down the next aisle. Her heart pounded. They...there was no way they would recognize her, right? It wasn't something she normally had to worry about. She swallowed, clutching the edge of the glass counter with whitened knuckles. She was always disguised by her transformation, that filter masking her face.

But...they had run into her multiple times. There were other things, things that guys who lived in high-risk situations might pay attention to. Her voice, the shape of her silhouette. Anything they might be able to use to eliminate her being a problem again.

Question was, how much of that had they picked up on?

They meandered through the shop as she strained her ears to hear what they were muttering about. Her paranoid mind was already running a mile a minute, _they know it's me, I’m gonna get shot at the register and I won't be able to stop it in time--_

At the edge of her vision, she could see Celene standing now outside the door, sensing her distress.

But the guys continued to murmur to themselves, not in any hurry to come back up to the counter. In the overly quiet atmosphere of the convenience store, with Katy Perry playing in the background, Rory was finally able to pick up bits and pieces of their conversation as they neared the front of the aisles--

"Yeah, man, he obviously let that bitch get away. Big guy like him? Shit, it shouldn't have even been a contest."

Rory's whirling mind stuttered. Were--they talking about what had happened on the roof top the last time she had run into them? That had been forever ago.

But if that was the case, that meant that they were talking about Tyrell.

“Yeah, Omar saw him strolling out of the fucking station like he owned the place the other day. I can't believe that shit. How stupid you gotta be?”

Rory's blood went cold.

“—teach that little snitch not to mess with the roots—"

“Yeah, little bitch doesn't even know it’s coming. When he shows up at the spot tonight, it’s gonna be the last fucking step he ever takes. Bet he's not so tough without some glittery freak fighting for him.”

“That boy had better come strapped.”

She didn't know if it was pure concentration or the rush of adrenaline in her ears that let her hear the conversation with such clarity all the sudden. But--she couldn't be hearing right, right? Tyrell had been so paranoid, so careful about talking to her the last he had seen of her. No way he would have gotten caught walking out in broad daylight.

The way they were talking though--it only could have been him. Her heart pounded. Were they...were they going to kill him? They definitely sounded mad enough, nasty enough. and although she wasn't super up to date will the lingo that they used, she couldn't imagine it could have been anything else.

Her fingers shook. Where, when? She didn't know where they were talking about, where they were planning to meet up that they were going to be waiting for him at. She needed more information. There was nothing she could do, though! She knew it was coming, but there was nothing she could--

There was a bang on the counter.

Rory jumped about ten feet.

Looking up, her eyes widened to see the guys standing there, looking impatient. "You gonna check us out, or what," one guy grumbled, and she snapped back to attention. Crap, crap, had they noticed her freaking out? What if they realized she had heard?

She forced a laugh. "Oh, man! Spent too long scrolling through Facebook last night, I guess; practically falling asleep. Sorry about that!" It was rushed and sloppy.

The guy was apparently too annoyed to notice, though. "Just do it," he scowled, and she quickly rung their items through. Her eyes flicked up, trying to memorize as many details as she could while she had the chance to see them in the light of day.

From beneath his beanie, the guy raised his eyes, and met hers. Rory repressed the urge to suck in a breath as he narrowed them. He spoke up lowly. "You got a problem or somethin'?"

"No, no!" She chuckled nervously. "You just remind me of my _\--" Think, think!_ "—boyfriend!"

Ugh, she wanted to smack herself! That was probably the worst way she could have responded.

...well, no--as unlikely as it sounded, she felt as though saying she reminded him of her brother would be worse, even though he couldn't have possibly known the significance.

The guy's eyebrows flew up, and she held her breath. Then, he slowly smirked. "Guess you got a lucky guy then, sweetheart."

She had to work overtime to keep the disgust off her face. Ugh, why did she say that?!

Mercifully, though, the guys turned around and moved to walk out. She was not a violent person as a rule, but her fists shook at the thought that these people were threatening her family as she watched them leave. She had to repress the urge to vault over the counter (which she totally could have done) and brain him with his own bottle of booze.

The second they were out of sight and Celene were peering in at her from the other side of the glass, reality sank in. A dangerous crew of gangbangers had marked Tyrell for death. She stared helplessly into the interior of the convenience store as if it were a prison. _There has to be something I can do. They...they have patterns, right? They only go in certain places. I can find them, right?_

Somewhere.

In the whole of Seattle.

In one night.

And they've already shot me once, she despaired, bringing her fingertips to the place now marked by a small patch on her side. She didn't even think of that. Had they noticed her moving to avoid the sore spot?

She had to do something. Her eyes anxiously moved to the clock--2:35 PM. It would be hours before she could begin looking.

No, that couldn't happen.

"Brenda?" She called out to the woman in the back room. She moved from behind her entrapment. She had to go now. "I'm sorry, but there's been a family emergency. I have to leave."

She didn't want to think about the possibility that she might have to take bereavement sometime soon.

When she went to leave, Celene was gone.

It was an anxious thing. When she got back to the house, her mama wasn't home yet, and Rory quickly changed out of her work outfit. Her hands trembled as she wretched her maps out of the drawer of her desk. Come on...she reached up to scrub the watery feeling from her eyes, uselessness sinking into her. There had to be some kind of way to tell where they were going to be. She eyed the pictures where she had highlighted the locations she had seen the Roots in, but the routes she had identified swam in front of her vision.

Celene wasn't at home. It was the first time the guardian hadn't tailed her everywhere she went since she had come back with a bullet hole, but it just made her feel worse. It was like all the things she could count on were abandoning her.

She sniffed, eyes red. That was so stupid; she'd been the one who had left her behind in the first place! She let Tyrell run around like an idiot, she kept her friends of the loop like they didn't mean anything. What kind of idiot was she?

Before her mama had the chance to get home, she headed out, and the first place she checked was the warehouse she had gone to last time, before the old hotel. As she anticipated, it was empty, the tools and crates of supplies cleared out and the floors covered in nothing but debris. Even though it was the first place she'd checked, she stupidly felt the hopelessness sink over her, and she sunk to the floor, combing through the dust as though it was hiding the only clue.

"Rory?"

She inhaled, whipping around as her braids whipped into her face. Tears flicked from her lashes and she ignored them, staring into the blinding burst of light filtering in through the warehouse's door.

Narma stood there.

She was outside of her uniform, dressed in the more worn clothing she had worn the day they had met up to do thier training session. That was scary enough; anyone who saw her could have recognized her. But Rory didn't want to see her there at all.

She stood sharply, her mind giving a wail of panic. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Narma jerked back, and Rory could hear the echo of her own vicious inquiry reverberating throughout the room. It didn't even sound like her. Narma moved out of the light, and her eyes were hurt. "Rory..."

Just then, she noticed the other form moving in beside Narma. Celene pattered in the doorway, looking stern, feline brow low on her eyes.

Narma inhaled stiffly, solidifying her stance. "I'm here because Celene told me you were out here doing something stupid." She narrowed her eyes, looking up and down at Rory's uniformed visage, and Rory felt a wave of shame come over her. She knew in that moment there wasn't going to be a way to talk herself out of this. Narma wasn't going to believe another lie. Narma said, "Obviously, she was right."

Celene's tail flicked sheepishly, despite her expression. "I'm sorry, Aurora--"

Anger bubbled up in her chest and Rory balled up her fists. Her yell was explosive. "How do you know what's stupid?" She stomped, dust kicking up around her and Narma's eyes only hardened defensively. "It's not like you know what's going on! You don't have any idea what I've been dealing with, what kind of--of real shit is going on in this city--" The swears felt foreign and ugly on her tongue. She had never spoken to one of her friends like this before. At that moment, though, she couldn't quiet her head down enough to see through the spiraling, didn't feel like she had any friends in the world.

Narma boomed back at her, "Well maybe I'd know if you woulda told me! What, did you not trust me enough to handle the 'real shit?' If you haven't forgotten, girl, I live on the other side of the street! I don't know what you think you've got that makes you able to handle the kind of stuff you're screwing with alone!"

It was like a bubble of poison popped inside her chest, and as she marched forward, she swung her arm back, so, so mad.

As she threw it forward, though, Narma caught it with little effort and the absolute pathetic sight of it was enough.

She realized that, although she was in uniform, she was alone in there. Boreas had been out of the picture the minute she had left the house that evening. There was no soldier, no battle smarts behind her.

She was just Rory, standing alone like an idiot.

Narma caught her as she fell forward, sobbing ugly as she curled against her chest. She held onto her as she blubbered into the cotton of her shirt, hugging tight as to muffle the noise. From the floor, she felt Celene rub her head against her leg.

After several minutes, Rory was finally calm enough to pull away a little, the mess of her face damp against the warehouse air. "I'm sorry," she said in a tiny voice.

"What's going on?" Narma asked quietly.

Rory told her.

She told her that she was the vigilante. She told her about her several run-ins with the Roots and the last time, where she had been shot. She told her about Tyrell.

"I don't know where he is," she whimpered, "Or where they are. I don't even know how much they know about him--what if they know about me? About my mama, Narma, I don't know what I can do."

Eventually, Narma pushed back, still grasping tight to her shoulders. "Aurora Grace," she said. "If there is anything you should have figured out about me in the three years of us being friends, you should know by now that I am ready to ride or die with you at any moment. Just say the word."

Rory choked, but Narma kept going, her gaze burning hot. "Now. We're going to track these guys down. We're going to kick their ass. And we are going to get Tyrell's dumb ass out of there."

Rory's chest ached. Stepping out of Narma's hold, she wiped her nose. She felt more like a kid wearing a Halloween costume than a soldier. "I didn't want you guys to get involved in this. It's too dangerous. You could get hurt."

Narma slapped a firm hand on her shoulder, expression no-nonsense. "I was already involved the moment these guys decided to fuck with my family. Okay?"

Rory gave a sob.

Celene had apparently decided the moment had deescalated enough that she could come back into it. "Aurora," she said, and Rory looked down at her. She stood in the patch of sundown light pouring in, ginger fur painted red and gold. "When I left your place of employment this afternoon, I was trying to figure out what about those men upset you so. I needed to make sure they weren't going to be a threat."

Rory inhaled sharply, attention fully on her guardian. _She couldn't possibly...?_

Celene narrowed her eyes. "I followed them," she said, "to an old power station on the outskirts of town. I know where they are. I can show you."

There were only so many places in the city that were capable of putting out a signal that would have reached the old Miller house. These weren't walkie-talkies--this was a sustainable signal that was not only strong enough to break through to a radio tower in the middle of a forest on a mountain, but had also previously been draining enough of the city's power grid to knock out blocks at a time, specifically. It was targeted. It was precise.

It was brilliant. Mallory had never before seen such bullshit.

Gwen leaned on the desk beside her, watching her riffle through papers like a mad woman. Her sister and Carmen were sitting crisscross-applesauce on Carmen's bed chatting like goddamn civilized teenagers, and she was no further to pinpointing where their geological sniper might have been shooting from.

"North is a lot," Gwen shrugged sympathetically.

"You're a tourist," Mallory shot back. "Don't tell me how big the city is."

North. Now, approximately, northeast. She had checked radio stations, cell phone manufactures. She had looked up if there had been any purchases lately for the types of parts that would have been needed to build the tower out in the woods. Made some calls--no local purchases.

"Maybe they're from out of town," Gwen suggested.

Maybe they had bought them online. Anything was possible.

You needed a permit, it turned out, and so she'd looked for any new licenses granted by the city. It turned out Creepster McGee didn't have a permit. She might have expected that, but she was running out of options.

Gwen stood back. She leaned her hip on the desk as Mallory revisited the list of all the places they had gotten hit: the bridge, the hospital, the street, the boat, the bus, the pier, the old Miller house.

Carmen's house.

"What I don't understand," Gwen said, "is if this guy has the technology to generate tectonic energy, why does he need to drain people? Seems like you could get a heck of a lot of power just with that."

Mallory nodded. "True, and that's probably how they have enough juice to make their monsters. But..." she paused, pushing away from the desk for a second. "...the last guys--" she sent a glance at Carmen; she'd come in late in the game, so it was possible she didn't have all her facts straight. "--came into town looking for our souls."

"Souls?" Sylvia piped up from the bed, suddenly looking interested. " _Souls_ souls? That's a bit more secular than I would have expected."

Mallory tisked. "Yeah, well, they were. Apparently, souls have this really specific type of power, and ours have some kind of high-octane soul energy besides."

"Poetic," Carmen said flatly.

Mallory brought a hand to her chin. "...my guess is that this person is coming after that kind of power. That's why they need people. Of course, that raises questions about what's going to happen to all of the people in intensive care right now. Do they even have souls anymore, or were they completely absorbed? Alternately, is there some kind of critical output of soul energy that any one person can withstand before their bodies just give out? It raises a lot of questions."

Carmen glanced towards the wall. "Not exactly questions I want to think about." She shuddered.

Mallory blew out a breath. "No joke." Still, this line of questioning was at least raising some interesting points. _Hm._ She turned around in the chair, crossing her arms over the head. "...why didn't we ever pass out?"

Sylvia lifted a finger. "The jelly monster--"

"No," said Carmen.

"--was definitely doing the power sucky thing whenever it had the opportunity."

Gwen shrugged. "Maybe it's just because we have that big soul energy."

Carmen narrowed her eyes. Sweeping a glance at the others, she flipped out a hand. "Then why didn't they capture us?" Acknowledging their confused expressions as they wrestled with the logistics, she clarified, "I mean, they never tried. The monsters would fight us, but only when we got in their way. They never tried to get a hold of us specifically. Wouldn't the smart thing to do have been to try and pin one of us down somewhere?" She flicked the hand again. "Renewable resource."

Mallory furrowed her brow. "Shit, you're right." Well, that sort of put a dent in that theory. Dang, she thought they might be getting somewhere for a second.

Her eyes moved back to the maps on the table. Her gaze lingered back over the list she had made, and she paused.

The first place. That bridge, didn't Rory and Narma say it was ironic at some point?

She grasped the corner of the street map and took a closer look at the area. Oh yeah, the name. Aurora Bridge.

Her eyes lingered on the faded text, a sudden chill working up her spine. She'd brushed it off at the time as a coincidence, but what if it wasn't?

She sat back. What if whatever tracking method their foe was using was using information about them, without the user necessarily knowing the significance? If that was the case, then that person would have had to have Rory's name before this whole thing started, to know that name was connected to them. How could they possibly know that? Places they frequented, she'd thought about that, or places where they were seen together? If they wanted to capture them, why not just capture them?

Unless that wasn't the goal.

She frowned sharply, a sudden suspicion growing. She swiveled back around, eyes pinning on the documents obscuring Carmen's desk.

...why would this person need them free? To know places they went, places they were around.

She sat up abruptly, gazing around the room they were in.

A person's movements throughout the day was one good way of figuring out where they lived.

...what if the point wasn't to find them, but to find their _houses?_

But why?

One strong possibility occurred to her, and she turned to the others. She eyed Gwen and Sylvia. "Is you guy's place locked up?"

The sisters looked at one another (or, almost, in Sylvia's case.) "Yeah," Gwen said, eyes suddenly guarded. "Why?"

Mallory pulled out her phone, briefly glancing to the window. It was pretty late in the evening. Getting dark. "Do you guys know where Rory and Narma are at? I haven't heard from them."

Carmen straightened. "I--no, I haven't. Rory's still grounded, right? So she's probably at home."

Mallory listened to the dial tone. "Hm. We need to speak with them ASAP. Something's rotten in Seattle."

Rory slowed down as they neared the building, the last light of sundown snuffing behind them. The building loomed like a monolith above them. On the other side of the street, it was worn and unassuming--broken windows, entry boarded up, exterior cement trailing patches of moss to the road. No sign of life anywhere.

But there was a van parked around back. Rory could just see the bare edge of a taillight from the road, but it was enough to confirm that there was someone there with them.

She swallowed. "This looks like the kind of place they'd shack up in," she confirmed to Narma and Celene, who were watching for confirmation.

"So..." Narma cracked her knuckles, but Rory could tell that she wasn't exactly raring to go. "What now?"

The wideness of her eyes gave away a nervousness Rory had never witnessed on her friend before. She remembered that feeling--it was a whole different beast going in to fight _people_.

Rory took a breath. "Now, we try and get a view inside. We don't want to do anything before we know who's in there." _And there's not a point in throwing ourselves into danger when we don't even know if Tyrell is in there._

Her pulse picked up. Tyrell, the reason they were there. How were they even going to do this? Even if they got in, and he was there, what if they...couldn't save him?

The real possibility of watching her older brother get shot to death made her stomach turn. Equally, the idea of Narma or herself getting shot to death.

But there was one possible casualty she could eliminate entirely.

She knelt down beside Celene, looking their guardian in the eye. "Celene. Thank you for bringing me here. This was more helpful than you could possibly imagine."

Celene narrowed her eyes.

She knew what was coming, probably. Rory inhaled. "I know you don't want to hear this, but I need you to go home."

Celene bristled, her fur puffing up real big in a way that would have been funny in any other scenario. Her eyes were hard. "Absolutely not."

Rory brushed a hand back over her braids. "I know you want to stay. But in this situation, you've already done the most helpful thing you can do. There's no reason for you to stick around and risk getting killed. We could probably take a hit, worst case scenario. You'd be done for."

That was a fact. But she also didn't want to risk the possibility of Celene being around to watch her die. Again. If she died tonight, it was all on her. She couldn't let Celene carry around that weight again, didn't want her to have to see it.

God (sorry God, Rory thought,) this was really freaking scary.

Celene pursed her...lips? Mouth? Cats didn't really have lips. She looked away. Cautiously, Rory reached out, stroking a hand down her back. The little guardian didn't relax, but her stormy eyes softened. "Thank you. Really. But with everything going on, with someone able to find Carmen's house? We can't risk leaving our homes unguarded.”

"My parents are at home," Narma offered. "But Rory's mom works nights."

The bright orange tail whipped along the concrete, agitated. "...fine." She didn't look at them, and she still looked upset. "I will keep surveillance over your home." Sharply, she looked up, eyes watery. "But you two had better come back."

Rory nodded stiffly. "We will."

Narma threw an arm lackadaisically over her shoulder. Rory could feel her shaking. "We'll watch out for each other! Now that this dummy isn't trying to go it alone, I mean. Don't worry. If things get too hairy, we'll get out of dodge."

Celene eyed them for a moment, then straightened her posture into something more determined. "Well then. Good luck, Sailor Soldiers! I believe in you girls. Kick ass, and don't die!"

Narma laughed, and they saluted. Rory thought it was probably real.

There was an order of business. They looked for an entryway first--they needed a way to get in without immediately being noticed, or at least not being noticed fast enough to stop them.

The building had a skylight. Rory had to Gust Narma up, and would probably need to Gust them down when the time came, but it allowed them to see down into the building.

Rory inhaled to see crates and crates full of arms--mostly smaller 44-calibers, but there were several longer boxes packed full with assault rifles. It sent a shiver through Rory to think about where those assault rifles might be going. Other gangs seemed unlikely, except maybe to...'take care' of them the way that the other Crimson Roots had implied before. Big-time criminals? Terrorists? The possibilities were terrible and endless.

She leaned away from the window, not wanting to cast even a moonlit shadow down into the room and call attention. This had to be it--their main base. This was the hub from which they spread violence and anxiety to new levels all over the city. Before, there were certain neighborhoods you could avoid, marked territory. If one group got a strangle hold on the whole city...would anywhere be safe?

What she really wanted to do was call the cops to this place before Tyrell ever got here. Not knowing where he was, though, that presented the possibility that these guys, already suspicious, might have someone watching him and might just shoot him on principal. So, that option was out.

She looked to Narma. "This is what he was waiting for," she hissed. "He was trying to find where their main base was so he could start checking into how their network operates.”

Narma furrowed her brows. "That's not going to help anyone if they take him out in there." Seeing her own expression, Narma mumbled, "Sorry."

She was right, though.

"So, now that we know how we're getting in, what do we do?"

Rory sat back. "We wait."

Narma blinked at her, "What, really? That's it?"

She sighed. "That's it."

An hour passed. They watched vigilantly, Rory's stomach in knots the whole time. The area inside wasn't a big open space the way it had been when she had encountered these guys previously--the old power plant was smattered with pipes and giant generators that sat throughout the room like giant metal barrels. She didn't like that she wasn't able to see exactly what was going on; knowing the theatricality of these guys, she expected there would be a scene when they went to do it, but she couldn't be sure.

Until she was.

Narma's eyes glittered with the light from inside as she peered down into the plant. "...do they look like they're circling up to you?"

Rory nodded slowly. "Yeah. They do." She peered over. "They've done this before--some kind of formality or something." She nodded sharply. "But it does mean something's about to happen."

They stood over the glass-covered opening, ready to move.

Rory hated that they weren't actually able to hear what was being said, though she could pick up some raised voices.

Actually...

Rory got down, but held up a hand when she saw Narma about to do the same. "You stay there," she whispered; "I'm going to crack the window."

Narma looked askance. "...doesn't that defeat the purpose of the..." She mimed smashing through a window with her fist against her hand.

"I'm just going to open it enough to hear." _And pray it doesn't make any noise._

Kneeling, she gently pressed to the latches holding the skylight closed. They came undone, protesting as they ground against the rusted metal, but the sound was nigh imperceptible. Wincing, she slowly lifted just the tiniest gap in the window.

And then, she could hear.

"--appreciate you boys showing up. I know you got work you got to get done, so I hope this won't take up too much of your time."

There were murmurs from the group as the lot of them acknowledged the words. They shuffled idly as Rory pressed her ear to the gap to try and make it clearer.

The guy (she couldn't really tell much about him; he had his back to her) kicked at the box of assault rifles. "Our deal with the arm down town looks good, and we are just about ready to move in on the other morons who think they got a claim in this city. As soon as we get the final okay, we're going to make that final move, and then we can move on to Portland. That should be a damn walk in the park."

The were some chuckles, and Rory narrowed her eyes as a few guys came forward to share their recent progress and set backs. She tried to memorize as many details as she could so she could pass them on later. Above her, Narma tapped her foot nervously.

"One more thing," the guy said. He began to pace, and Rory tensed to see it was one of the guys she'd seen in the shop. Shark.

She tapped Narma's ankle frantically. "Narma, that's the guy. From the shop."

"Shit," she hissed.

She kept listening.

"Trey. I was wanting to talk to you about your running."

A voice. "Oh. Me?"

Someone stepped forward.

_'Trey.'_ Of course, Tyrell wouldn't be going by his own name. "Narma," she whispered.

"Just tell me when."

As Rory stumbled to stand, she caught the beginning of a sentence. "So you thought you could snitch on us and there wouldn't be consequences?"

They jumped through.

Glass splashed up around them and she buffered the impact and the fall with a gust. Shark and a nervous-looking Tyrell stumbled back from one another to avoid being caught in the splash.

Shark yelped, "The shit? _Two_ \--"

"Typhoon Strikedown!" Narma poured water down on the alarmed gangsters as Rory grabbed Tyrell's hand. "Come on!" She yelled and took off. Narma was fast behind her, and she could hear yelling and the sounds of guns being drawn.

Bullets rang out behind, and Rory gritted her teeth, holding a whirling barrier up behind them.

"What the hell?" Tyrell sputtered, but kept up the pace, seeming to catch onto the fact he was not in a good position just then.

"They knew about the police," Narma huffed, struggling to keep up. Running? Not Narma's strongest point. "They want to kill you."

"Oh, shit," Tyrell squeaked.

"Shh," Rory tugged him around one of the generators and stopped. She held a finger up to her lips, and they tensely watched as the group passed them, breathing hard. They waited a long second, Shark's yells ringing through the metallic surfaces of the building. "We have to get you out of here."

Rory took a step forward and then immediately snapped back as more guys ran past. They must have thought they were still running.

"What are we going to do?" Narma hissed. "These guys are going to think to look behind eventually."

Suddenly, Tyrell's brow furrowed. He turned to Narma, and Rory shocked straight as he said, "Do I know you?"

_Crap!_ Narma's accent was pretty distinct. Her round vowels and perpetual snark--of course, Tyrell might recognize it!

Narma tensed. "No! Never seen you before."

Rory grabbed Tyrell's other arm, dragging his attention away. "We've got to get those guns away from them. If they have them, we don't stand a chance."

Tyrell shrugged, wide-eyed. "I don't know what you expect me to do about it!"

"Uh. Guys."

Rory looked over to see Narma pointing towards the ceiling. She looked up to see what looked like a giant metal disc looming above them.

Narma said, "Is that a magnet?"

"Yeah," Tyrell said, though his voice didn't sound any more excited by this fact. "The construction workers who were in charge of taking this place apart moved it in over there--" There--more than one skylight! "--so they could unhook the generators and carry them out. Ditched the place before we ever got here, though. Just saw it on the plans."

Rory's eyes widened. "If we can get up there..." Before she let her excitement get to her, she gave a tiny side-step that let her see between the generators. _This place is huge..._

She could see guys meandering around. It was a miracle that they hadn't been caught before then, to be honest. There were maybe thirty guys tromping around, pissed and ready to take them out on sight. She took a breath. "I don't know. There's so many guys."

Narma shrugged at her weakly. "We could just...leave?"

Rory shook her head, her voice hardening. "If we just walk out of here, they'll just keep coming. I want to get out of here." She turned to the others, eyes narrowed. "And I want to never see these guys again."

Narma blinked, then grinned. "That, I can get behind."

Tyrell sighed, tipping his head back. "I'm never working with superheros again."

_Bang._ They dropped to the floor as shot burst beside Tyrell's head, scrambling back. Rory fired off a gust, sweeping a breeze out and around the corner as the they struggled to find somewhere to not get shot.

"Watch me on this side!" Rory gestured to her right, and Narma flanked in beside her as they rounded the circumference of the next generator. Tyrell shuffled between them, apparently willing to admit that the two of them were more capable of handling this. Rory peeked back around to see more guys heading their way--she fired a gust, sending them back into the metal vat before swiftly turning back around. Quiet.

Narma gestured them out and they darted over to an old circuit board, a space against the wall beside it that made it an ideal spot for hiding. "Okay. What now?"

She didn't want to say what she was thinking- _-we need freaking guns._ No, she didn't want to make that turn. Her attacks were powerful, but they obviously had more of a punch with soul-based enemies. The Gust could stop the people, but they couldn’t stop the bullets.

She sighed shakily. "There has to be a better way here. We can't just keep running--they're going to corner us eventually."

Tyrell sighed.

And then reached for his waistband.

Rory watched, disheartened, as he revealed a pistol. "I don't want you to have to use that," she said.

Tyrell blew out a breath. "I know. No undo harm, right? Inn't that how super heroes work? I don't know."

Rory frowned, leaning back against the circuit board. _That ain't it, Ty_. "I don't want you to have that on your hands."

"Might have to," he said grimly.

Beside them, Narma was eyeing the space above them, where the crux of the upper walkway lay. "You think you can Gust us up there?"

Tyrell shook his head. "No way. They'll shoot us down like ducks."

Scanning the upper floor, Rory noticed a discarded sheet of metal. "Hey," she said. "That could work."

Calling on her gust, she gently wrapped air around the sheet, sliding it under the guard rail. As she got it about halfway under, she heard a "Hey!" ring out and the bullets started flying.

Narma thrust her hands down. "Typhoon Strikedown!"

The geysers sent the thugs to the floor and they moved, struggling to hold up the enormous metal sheet. Luckily, her gloves were pretty good for gripping. They moved, darting for the space between two generators a bit closer to the stairs _. Agh, we're almost there!_

With a shout, metal pinged into the metal beside her head, grazing her cheek as it ricocheted. They yelped, turning the sheet to face the other side only to leave the original exposed. Rory wanted to scream. _Oh, come on!_

A voice reverberated through the building. "Do you really think you guys are getting out of here?" She heard Shark call. "You punk-ass little freaks? You guys are dead. You're already dead!"

"You're messing with the wrong crew," grumbled a new voice, harsh enough to carry. Rory's eyes widened as she recognized the deep rumble of Harlo. He was the local leader, wasn't he? When had he gotten here?!

"Oh, shit," Tyrell whined.

Harlo boomed out, "Trey, you're a dead son of a bitch!"

"Concentrate," Rory hissed. She eyed the stairs and the place around them.

"Hold," Narma said before dropping her side. "Typhoon Strikedown!"

Rory's eyes widened. _Wow, she's getting faster with that!_ She grunted as Narma gestured for them to back up the stairs, sweat beading on her brow as she kept the water flowing, creating a barrier.

Still not enough to stop bullets.

Narma heard a bang impacting to the metal sheet behind her, and then a pop. In an instant, she dropped the barrier, hand flying to her head as a sharp pain racketed through it.

She gasped, and vaguely she noticed the others turn to look at her. Rory pulled her back up the stairs as Tyrell strained to hold the sheet by himself.

Her head throbbed, that piercing pain still ringing through it. The tone seemed to drown out everything around them, until she turned to look at her teammates.

"-Egeria?" Rory's voice became audible; she could hear the blood rushing in her head. "You good?"

"Y-yeah," she said, though she kind of felt like she was going to throw up. They moved just far enough to create a little bunker in the machinery. The room was spinning a little, but she could see the magnet crane right over there.

She stumbled. Rory caught her shoulder, and Tyrell peeked over the barrier, firing his pistol. Again, she heard it, but more like it was happening on the other side of the room.

Rory's expression twisted up, and Narma knew she hated her brother getting involved in all of this.

Harlo scoffed, yelling, "You really going to try and hold off all of us?"

"How are we going to get to that?" Narma said, and she slurred, Rory curling over her as if to shield her. "Can we even--can we even make it work?"

Tyrell ducked, speaking up as artillery fire spit out over thier heads.

"There's keys," he said, "in a locked box by the desk over there. There's other keys too, but the one for the crane is in there for sure." Muffled.

She heard Rory said, more clearly, "Which color are they?"

Tyrell hesitated. "I...I don't know."

Rory said, "Then we'll just have to get them all."

Narma's vision had finally cleared, although she was still having trouble standing up. She didn't know if she'd hit her head or what, but she knew she'd become somewhat of a dead weight. "R--Boreas. I'm sorry."

Rory tsked. "Don't apologize. We're going to make this work."

"Alright, that's enough."

The three of them jerked back as a large guy in a tank top was suddenly right on top of them. Moving faster than Narma could keep track of, Rory called a gust to yank the gun from the guy's hand. He barked a protest, but just as quickly reached out and grabbed Rory by the neck.

Narma's heart leapt as he hauled her up, and several guys filed in behind them. Narma threw her hands out, and just before she could call a Typhoon, Tyrell reached up and punched the guy in the face.

No one had been expecting that, it seemed. Guys who had been ready to fire on them faltered as their boss stumbled back, not willing to fire on him or each other. The space was too small. Unwittingly, they had eliminated their advantage.

Bedlam broke loose.

Narma stumbled up, and leaning her hip on a generator for support, she cast a Typhoon on the guys around them, packed in so tightly more than three of them were cast to the ground.

Tyrell powered forward, lugging the sheet like a riot shield to bust through the guys in front of them. Harlo was forced back, and then into the open shift manager's office.

Narma stumbled forward and locked the door. Angry yelling resounded from within, Harlo pounding on the door to be let out.

"Rory, are you okay?"

Narma was so disoriented, she didn't even think about it at the time.

Her leader stood, rubbing her neck, and turned to look at her.

"You have to go now!" Narma yelled. "We'll hold them off! Just get to the crane!"

Rory turned, where beside them the lockbox full of keys was pried open. For a second, Narma thought she saw her fiddle with something on the desk, and then she was off.

"Help me keep these guys off her," Narma yelled back to Tyrell.

She didn't register the pause before he responded. "Ye-...Yeah."

She still wasn't totally with it. But she heard the clap of Rory's boots tearing away. Why that, though? Half of everything in the room.

It was her right ear, she realized, as the furious gang members set upon them, crashing forwards to grab at them.

That's why.

She couldn't hear out of it.

Rory...no, Boreas booked it along the upper floor of the building.

Some guys had noticed her leave, for sure. Whole body tense, she zigzagged along the walk way, not wanting to give these guys any opportunity. Turning to run backwards, she rapidly yanked the guns from their hands, throwing them to the lower floor.

They still kept coming.

She grit her teeth, pumping her arms as she neared the crane. At least she'd gotten a head start.

Spying the crane door(which, by the way, how the heck had they gotten this thing up there in the first place? A second crane? Agh, no time to think about it!), she slapped it open with air and leapt inside, jamming her knee into the stick. She hissed, but closed the door behind her, locking it.

She let her hands open, spilling keys into her lap. She grabbed the first set, jamming it into the ignition. Nothing.

By then, the two guys who had been after her were upon the crane, slamming their hands into the windows trying to break it. She grimaced, heart pounding.

The second--no, wait, that was it! Having chosen well, the crane hummed to life, and she immediately pressed the button to lower the magnet.

Then...

then she...

...crap! She stared at the other controls, suddenly realizing that every other control in here was way less obvious. She didn't know how to drive a crane!

There was a thump and a form suddenly came barreling past the window.

She exhaled at the sight of Tyrell, having knocked the guys unconscious with his giant metal shield. She unlocked the door at his prompting. "Let me in," he said. "I know how to operate it. Good job finding the keys."

Rory climbed out, a panting Narma coming up beside her. "How did you guys make it over here?"

Tyrell shot a thumb at Narma. "She shot them to the bottom floor."

Girl looked ready to pass out on the floor. "Turns out falling ass flat on the floor can turn Typhoon into a water cannon."

Rory's hands were still itching, knowing they only had a short window to make this work. "Nice. Now let's do this. We don't have much time."

"What are we doing?" Tyrell asked, his hand on the controls.

"Just move the magnet over the weapon's stash," Rory nodded. "We'll take care of the rest."

Tyrell stared at her for a moment. Then nodded.

He began to move the crane. She looked at Narma and said, "Wait for the signal."

"What is the signal?!" Narma called behind as she took a leaping vault over the railing.

She swung out to grab the cord of the lowered magnet, then lowered herself down. "Hey," she said to the guys who were running back towards the stairs, where they promptly turned back around. "Were you looking for me?"

They roared collectively, charging back towards her as the front-most guys drew their guns. With a flick, she disarmed them, but instead of throwing them away she blew them back towards her, where the magnet was waiting. As they neared, she threw her weight back and forth.

The magnet began swinging.

"What are you doing?!" Narma screamed from above.

"Wait one sec," Rory called as she drew on a Gust. Lightly, she nudged the magnet, until instead of just swinging back and forth, the magnet became a vicious pendulum, moving circularly around the room.

The magnet was stronger than she had hoped. As the guys neared, the guns were smacked out of their hands--where they stuck to the magnet.

But the magnet wasn't done. She stood on one side or the other as she swung around, aiming the magnet to grab up the guys inventory. They grabbed at the magnet, but had lost the option of firing on her.

"Egeria!" She called out. "Vortex!"

She was stealing her own move from the previous night. If that attack could destroy a nigh impervious blob monster, how would it do on something decidedly breakable?

Only one way to find out.

"Oh," she heard Narma shout back, recognition in her voice. "Got it!"

"On my mark," Sailor Boreas shouted back, beginning to spin the magnet too fast for any of the gangbangers to interfere without getting knocked into next week. "1, 2, 3--"

They shouted at the same time.

_"Extreme Slashing Vortex!"_

The Gust that had begun to evaporate beneath her suddenly picked up, caught in the whirling cyclone. There were loud metallic pings as the shrapnel inside gained effectiveness--the weapons trapped inside, the pistols, the rifles, were being cut to pieces. Honestly, it was a bit of a miracle they didn't explode--they must not have been loaded, except for the ones grabbed from the gangsters, which were only a few in the bunch.

The gangbangers shouted, flinching back from the sputtering of wind, metal, and water. Straining, Sailor Boreas compelled the attack to rise up, surrounding her and guarding the other two. "I would stay back," she shouted over the ruckus, not sure if anyone could hear her, "unless you think a blender sounds like a fun time!"

A couple of the guys had realized that the pair above were still causing part of the problem, and she watched through the haze as Tyrell evacuated the crane to barrel down the now gunless assailants with the metal sheet.

Just one last move. Rory prayed that this would work. Otherwise, she was about to be stuck with some very ticked off gangsters.

As the vortex died and the guys got the guts to try and approach the crane again, Rory, blood pounding, called the Gust back up. There were spots in front of her eyes from trying to hold the attacks one right after the other, but she didn't want to know what happened if she failed. In a last-ditch maneuver, she held on to the crane for dear life--and pushed.

The monstrous slab of the magnet circled the first floor, slamming into anyone stupid enough to have stuck around. Shouts rung out as guys were thrown to the floor. As it slowed down, she saw a couple guys headed for the door, apparently realizing they were outmatched. _Yeah_ , she thought, panting. _Take that._

The room was chaos, but she climbed back up the magnet cord back up to the second floor. "Come on, guys," She said, and she saw Narma look kind of confused before looking directly at her.

"What?" she said.

Rory lowered her brows. "We need to get out of here."

Tyrell piped up. "Wait, what's to stop those guys outside from coming after us?"

Rory listened to the air, very carefully. After a moment, she heard a clunk.

"I think we'll be fine. I'll show you."

Despite enormous protest, she Gusted them to the roof. She hadn't been this exhausted in a long time, and everything she'd just done suddenly piled onto her tiredness from yesterday, all if it swooping in at once. She panted on the top of the power plant, the other two waiting over her anxiously until she was able to drag herself up. "Look," she said.

Exactly what she'd been hoping to see.

About 5 police cars sat outside the building. The guys who had run outside were being cuffed, and as she watched, Rory could see them head into the building.

Tyrell gaped. "Wait, how did you know?"

"Also, why did they just now show up?" Narma grumbled. "Seems like really convenient timing."

Yeah, a repeat of yesterday wouldn't have been good. She was just hoping they managed to keep some of these guys under wraps--gangbangers trying to hunt them down for destroying their biggest export in the city is not something any of them wanted.

Rory wiped her brow. "There was a phone at the manager's station. You know, where keybox was?" She sighed. "There was a landline. I dialed 911 and left it off the hook when I went to grab the keys."

"Holy shit, good job," Narma murmured.

They watched the guys be taken away. Only time would tell how effective they had been here; whether they had put a kink in the Root's plans, or whether they were going to get shot heading out for a mission some night in the future. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

But, most importantly right then...

Rory turned to look at Tyrell.

Tyrell rubbed the back of his neck. "You...you girls really saved my ass in there. Thanks, I guess. For coming to the rescue."

He was looking at them sort of oddly; Rory couldn't decipher it. It was almost as though he wanted to ask something, but he didn't.

Maybe best to just let it go.

"Just doing the right thing," Rory said, although she couldn't have been happier to know her brother was safe. She had seriously been convinced at the start of the day that there was no chance she could save him. That hopelessness had been crushing, even though it had only been for a short while. She could hardly believe they'd done it.

She turned to Tyrell. "You should go. It might be nice to put in your report with the police when there's not so much going on. Stay out of the fray, you know."

"Yeah," he said. Waving, he lowered himself down by the fire escape. "Thanks again."

The moonlight blazed down on them, and like the opposite of the Miasma, it seemed like the only thing that was keeping Rory upright. She turned to Narma, who was wiping blood from the side of her face. She knew they'd gotten her pretty good, but at least they weren't any worse than they were. "You okay?"

It took Narma a long moment to look up, and when she saw her looking, she seemed to realize she'd been spoken to. "What? Oh, yeah. We should get home."

Rory frowned. "You sure? You seemed pretty out of it before." She gestured to the side of her face, where the stain was just a blood smear now.

"Hm? Oh, no. I just got a little disoriented by the noise. I'll be fine."

Rory eyed her. Stepping forward, Rory hugged her. "Thanks for coming out here with me. I would have been done for."

Narma squinted at her for a second, before throwing an arm over her shoulder. "Just try not to make a habit of it, okay? Now, let's get home."

Rory was glad they lived so close together. She could make sure she got home. They both deserved a long rest.

Narma parted with Rory on the street, back in her civilian attire. Her head still ached terribly, her right ear in particular. She wasn’t sure if it was temporary, or if something had permanently been damaged by the gun shot, which scared her. But she couldn’t tell Rory. She knew girl had been worried about anything happening to her in there, and if this was something that wouldn’t go away, she couldn’t imagine how that might make Rory feel. 

She just...had to keep quiet about it.

But it throbbed as she entered her house, all the lights dark. She was expecting some kind of riot act from her parents, especially after the night at the arcade, but her locked door must have actually fooled them.

Even so, Narma knew the moment that she crept to her room that something was wrong.

Mostly because the door was unlocked.

She placed the bobby pin she’d brought back in her pocket, and pushed the door open. _Did they open it while I was gone?_

She stopped in the doorway. Eyes scanning the room, she felt that something was out of place but she couldn't quite pin point what. She was stiff, the same way that you got after watching a scary movie--the familiar shadows of your own space distorted into horrible possibility.

The first thing she was able to pin down was her bed sheets. Narma had never thought of herself as particularly regimented--and in fact, she prided herself on not being. But she did have a routine, and she always made her bed in the morning. It was part of her Ayurveda, a sort of clean-space-equaling-mental-clarity type of deal.

But the corner was folded back.

Extreme paranoia compelled her to look under the bed, but...nothing.

_Krishna_ , she hated the void of sound in her right ear. She kept feeling like something would sneak up on her.

But it wasn't the only thing. In a minute's time, one thing led to another, and another, and another. Her closet was shut. Her shoes were not in the same order at the bottom. Like someone had been riffling.

Narma straightened. _Oh,_ she realized. _Oh, shit._

She fumbled for her cell phone, dialing Rory's number. She had to hold it in the opposite hand as normal so she could actually hear it. It rung a few times before she heard Rory pick up. "Narma?"

"Rory," she whispered into the receiver, spiraling about her room as not to let her back face any open spaces. "Rory, where are you?"

She heard her pause. "...grabbing some dinner before bed? What's up? Why are you whispering?"

She heard Rory open and close her cabinet door on the other side of the line.

Narma's eyes hunted in the corners of her room, convinced she was going to see someone there. "Rory, someone was in my room," she hissed, cradling the cell phone with both hands.

She heard a fumble, like Rory had re-adjusted the phone. "Huh? Why do you think that? And anyways, are you sure it wasn't your parents?"

Narma shook her head, even though, stupid, Rory couldn't see it. Shit, she was so on edge! "No," she insisted. “Somebody went through my stuff. Rory, they were looking for something."

A long pause.

Sweat beaded on the back of Narma's neck. "Rory?" Silence. "Are you still there?"

The phone was quiet for several moments. Narma swallowed, sure at any moment she was going to hear some kind of horror-esque scream from Rory's end before being murder-death-killed herself.

But it was quiet.

Then, a fumbling noise, like the rearrangement she had heard earlier but louder, more urgent. Rory came on the line. "Narma," she whimpered, and Narma could hear the panic in her voice. "Someone's been here. Celene's...I shouldn't have sent her back."

Narma's eyes widened. "...Rory?"

"She's...she's hurt. And the box—the Cosmos Treasure Box. I can’t find it."

And that’s when the day went from bad to worse.


	15. Chapter 15

**Episode 15: Integrate**

Blue Pearl Pet Hospital was the only place Rory could find that was even remotely nearby. She plugged the location into her phone and followed the muffled instructions, carrying Celene in her arms through the streets. She could hardly breathe, and every time she took a turn she expected to be lost, but then she would find her next landmark coming up.

She petted a hand down Celene's back. "Hang in there, girl," she whispered, but her guardian didn't reply. At least she was breathing.

She was glad that the police were distracted taking in the Roots, and vice versa; at least she didn't run into any unfriendly faces.

After what seemed like an agonizingly long time, she turned the corner to see the faint white porchlight she prayed was Blue Pearl, and she turned towards the building. She passed the street sign as she approached; _13240 Aurora Avenue._ She grit her teeth—another coincidence. It felt like everything in the city had its eye on her.

She entered the building in a rush, pushing open the door with her elbows and causing the attendant at the desk to jump. The woman's clear brown eyes landed on Celene.

"Someone broke into my house," Rory burst out in a rush of breath. "I think they hurt my cat!"

The woman shouted back to the swinging door behind her, and a nurse gestured her in after just a moment. "Come in, let me see them."

The nurse, whose name was Jessica, looked Celene over, pressing gently on Celene's side where she made a little whine. She tsked. "It does look like she might have taken a hit. I'm going to take an x-ray so we can see what we're working with okay?" The woman brushed her dark hair behind her ear. "Don't worry," she said, but with urgency, "we're going to do everything we can. What's her name?"

Rory swallowed. "It's Celene."

She tapped her foot siting anxiously in the waiting room of the vet, hands steepled in front of her. She checked back with Narma, letting her know what was happening, and apparently, she had checked in with the others as well. The others were reasonably distressed, but she had nothing to tell any of them.

She breathed in deeply, setting her chin on her steepled hands. This was all her fault. If she hadn't been running around, trying to take on a gang all by her dang self, Celene never would have gotten Narma involved and then went back to Rory's place alone. Whoever it was, (and they still had no idea,) they were off with the Treasure Box and Celene was hurt. Rory didn't even know what the Treasure Box could do! How were they supposed to prevent something they knew nothing about?

_Celene could have told you, if you’d listened to her._

After a couple slow hours or so, the attendant called her up to the counter. "They're going to be out to speak to you in a little bit, but while we're waiting, it might be a good time to get your information logged in. Now, I know this is not what you probably want to focus on right now, but I do need to log what payment method we're going to be using."

Oh, crap—Rory hadn't even thought about that.

Rory was kind of mad at herself that her first thought was Carmen. _I have to quit doing that._ Girl was going to start thinking they were only friends with her for her money.

But—that didn't matter right now.

Seeing her expression, the woman gave her a pitying look. “We can send you a bill, if you’d rather.”

“Yes, please,” she sighed.

It was another twenty minutes before the nurse came back out. She looked like she was about to call her name, but the moment she came through the entryway Rory rushed up to meet her. "How is she?"

Jessica pursed her lips. "There does seem to be some evidence of blunt trauma," she said, and Rory's heart dropped. "I'm anticipating the x-rays to come back showing some broken ribs. The good news is that cats are very sturdy animals. They can endure a lot." The nurse nodded at her, expression gentle. "I would definitely recommend we keep her here for a few days, in case of any internal bleeding the initial scans might not have picked up on. Cats recover from injuries like this all the time, though. I'm very optimistic."

By the time she got home, it was well past time for her mama to have gotten home from work, and boy did she get an earful. It ended up being to her benefit to for the most part tell the truth then—she admitted that she'd been taking care of a cat (though, Celene really mostly took care of herself,) and that she had come home to find that someone had been there. Mama must have seen how upset she was, though, because she softened once she saw how Rory’s expression.

Mama sighed. "I thought I'd been seeing cat fur. Girl, I told you, no pets."

"I knew you were gonna be mad," Rory mumbled.

Mama frowned at her, dark eyes weary. "...you obviously love this little cat. I supposed. If she pulls through, you can keep her."

Any other time, Rory would have been happy.

Right then, all she could hear was _if she pulls through._

As morning dawned, Erin shuffled into the Institute without speaking to anyone. The duffle bag was bulged unnaturally beneath her arm as she speed-walked through the building, heading straight for the labs.

“Good morning Profes—oh?” The assistant trailed off as she moved for the door to the basement. She shut it behind her.

As she reached the second room, she fished into her bag, her hands closing over the elaborate embellishments and engraving. She exhaled heavily as she lifted the box from inside, setting it gently on the table.

It seemed innocuous. It looked as the name might suggest: too ornate, like a child's interpretation of treasure chest, more like a jewelry box than anything. Taking a sharp inhale, she backed away, the buzzing lights of the fluorescents above flashing a glare in her eyes.

She couldn't believe it.

_She had it._

It was right in front of her: the key to fixing the most catastrophic mistake of her life.

With this, she was going to make sure that terrible day never happened.

From behind her, the feed of the future hummed placidly, her older self watching her handle the most precious object she had ever laid hands on. "I'll be honest, I wasn't sure you had it in you."

Erin adjusted her glasses, staring down the box as though it were an opponent she were trying to best. "Wouldn't that mean you weren't either?"

Her Benefactor went quiet, which surprised her. Maybe things had not changed so much, after all. "...we have to be very careful handling this," she said after a long moment. "Even without opening it, it's contents could be incredibly volatile to the procedures we're going to put it through. I have no idea what might happen if we overload it."

Erin turned back to the screen. "We're not going to open it?"

"It's impossible to open," her Benefactor said firmly. "It requires a very particular key, and will yield to nothing else. Even being in this artifact's proximity should lend higher energy output than anything you've even encountered.”

Erin swallowed, hands itching with the urge to get up close and examine every feature of box, and still. By every description, she had to wonder if she were playing with a bomb.

She remembered when her future self had first contacted her. She had just arrived here in Seattle, having volunteered for the collaboration with the institute. It was maybe a masochistic urge to return to a home she had run away from after Emma's loss had tainted every familiar sight.

Regardless, she'd just been moving her extra equipment into the old security room in the basement of the Institute when one of the screens flickered to life.

_"Erin."_

_She froze, turning to look at the image that was blaring back to her. There was a woman on the screen—who had just said her name? About 5 reasons this was impossible flooded her mind; why did it turn on by itself, what's the likelihood that a television signal would have said my name specifically, this person can't see me this is a security feed why would there be a communicable video feed—_

_And then she took another look at the face on the screen, and the multiple trains she had going collided with a much more solid wall._

_She hadn't known how to reconcile with the fact she was looking at herself._

_"Stop staring and listen," her older self barked, a tapestry of stars glowing from behind her head. "I'm contacting you from 1000 years in the future."_

_Erin's eyes widened. "But—" You only look a few years older._

_"Don't agonize over the logistics right now," she said harshly. "I'm not sure how long this signal can hold at a time. I'm contacting you now because I know how to save our daughter from death."_

_With those words, Erin's mind was made up._

_She explained that she'd traveled through time and space to a place with incredible magic and technology. "I can't give you more than that," she'd insisted. "I don't know how much we're risking simply by me contacting you today."_

_This version of herself, who would become her Benefactor, had managed to reach back far enough to speak to her then, but something was blocking the signal from going any further. Still, the possibility had alighted the only hope she'd had since that day. "If we can figure out how to bypass whatever is blocking the signal in this time—"_

_Her older self nodded. "We can send a message far enough back to stop the accident."_

Even once she had explained what they needed to do—Erin had been terrified at the idea of the damage she would have to cause, but it was worth it, it had to be—she knew there was no possible way she wasn't going through with it.

And here it was: the power source her Benefactor had said was waiting in this time.

"We have to try and integrate it with the machine," her other self called from the screen, indicating the energy transmitter she'd been building based on her future selves' advanced knowledge. She narrowed her weary eyes. "If we can feed the artifact's energy field directly into the convertor, it should give us a signal strong enough to bypass any interference.”

"Professor Morringer?"

Erin jumped where she had been kneeling to adjust the connections under her worktable. The feed clicked off without prompting, and she rubbed at her aching head. "Ah—yes! I'm quite busy! I'll be up in a little while!"

The assistant who had been calling down the steps hesitated. "O...kay? Well, we'll let you know if anything happens," he said, before shutting the door.

Gritting her teeth, she waited a long moment before stomping up the stairs to lock the door.

Forget what she had said before. Her job, her reputation—none of that mattered. Now, when she had everything she needed, when she was right on the cusp of seeing Emma again—nothing else mattered.

She couldn't afford any distractions.

She flipped the bolt before descending back into the bowels of the facility.

Narma couldn't believe she was here right now.

With everything going on, it brought her an unfamiliar anxiety to be going about her normal day when she knew that Celene was in intensive care. That someone had the box.

That she still couldn't hear out of her right ear.

It was just a small thing. She had finished the work repairing the slight damage her dresses had taken in the wee hours of the night whist she was waiting on tenterhooks to hear back from Rory, and the internship was close enough to over that this was one of her last opportunities to turn them in. Still, to be there and pretending that life was proceeding as normal when she knew a storm was brewing, black and ominous on the horizon...it wasn't a good feeling.

Everyone else was being useful. Carmen had driven Rory back to the hospital (it felt weird to call it a vet) to check on Celene, see if she was conscious enough to tell them anything. Gwen, Sylvia, and Mallory were combing through the information they had, scrambling to find any more clues to the thief’s identity than they already had before.

She shook her head, bustling through the halls of the institute with her rack of dresses in their black bags. _Best to get in and get out._

Carmen peered to where Rory stood next to her at the counter of the vet’s office, staring guiltily at her feet. "You've got to stop blaming yourself for this," she whispered over to her, leaning on the raised countertop. "You couldn't possibly have known."

She could have. But no way was she going to be the kind of person to bring up the fact that leaving their houses alone at this juncture might have been unwise. Rory was obviously beating herself up enough for this; she didn't need help.

Besides, it wasn't as though Carmen had had foresight enough to protect her own home, had she? And whoever was doing this had asked unpredictably in the past, so who knew what they might have been thinking at any given moment.

She sighed, trying not to be audible about it. Maybe she was just mad. Mad that someone could come into their lives, cause this kind of chaos, and just _walk away._

That didn't mean she had to be mad at Rory; she didn't deserve that.

Their heads lifted as the nurse emerged from the office.

Carmen said, "How is she?"

"She's doing well," the nurse said, and Carmen could see Rory slump on the counter from the corner of her eye. “I would still recommend that we keep her for another day or so, but she seems like she is going to bounce back."

Carmen let out a breath. _Thank goodness._ She couldn't imagine Celene not coming out of here, on top of everything else. It just...would have been too much.

Rory bounced on her toes, though there wasn't an ounce of enthusiasm on her face. "Can we see her?"

Carmen’s stomach suck when the nurse shook her head. "I don't think a lot of excitement would be good for her right now, I'm sorry. Well—" she seemed to reconsider after she'd said it, glancing away. "—I suppose stepping in the back to see her would be okay. But I don't think it's a good idea to pick her up or anything at this point. She's still pretty drowsy from her medication."

Nurse Jessica lead them into the back, where a wall of square cages made her stomach turn. What could they do, though? They couldn't exactly tell the nurse that Celene was some sort of alien cat guardian who could speak, a _person_ , and not just any cat—for anyone's pet, this would have been totally normal.

Still, it felt wrong for her to be locked up like an animal. She wasn't one; not really.

The nurse indicated one of the cages as they approached, and they peered inside to see Celene curled up, bandages around her torso. "There wasn't any bleeding," Jessica said quickly, "But we needed some banding to keep her ribs stable."

Carmen folded her hands before herself, unsure what to do with them as Rory slipped her fingers between the bars of the cage to stroke Celene's back.

Carmen bit her lip, glancing back towards the entryway door. She wondered if there were any way for them to get Jessica to leave them alone for a few minutes. As much as she hated to disturb her when she was recovering, if there were any chance they could get her to wake up long enough to check how she was really doing, or to see if she could recall any details about her assailant, they needed to take it.

Opening her mouth, Carmen prepared to create and excuse out of thin air, anything that might give them a few moments—

Then the lights went out.

There was a heart-stopping moment where the alarm she had felt at the hospital rose in her like a scream, before she remembered where she was and willed her heart to calm down.

"Oh, not again," Jessica huffed. "Sorry guys," she said as the lights flickered, as though they couldn't decide if they wanted to come back on or not. "The power grid in this area has been terrible over the past few weeks. Seems like it's going out every other day."

Carmen narrowed her eyes. "Hold on. Do you remember the last time you had a power surge like this?" This place is no where near the other attack sites. Why would the power be affected here?

Jessica frowned, bringing her hand to her chin. "Um? Well—oh. I think it was about two days ago, because I had to re-enter those records..." she trailed off.

Two days ago? Carmen straightened. _That's when that Cryptid showed up at home._

But her house was no where near there. So why...?

Suddenly, a little _beep-beep_ sounded in the air.

Both she and Rory looked to each other, wondering why their cell phones had gone off at the same time.

Carmen pulled her phone out to see Narma's contact plastered on the screen.

**hey, is everything good with you guys?**

**Shit is going down over here.**

**Pretty sure I need backup**

_Moments before..._

When Narma wheeled her rack up to Abby, she blinked up from her work like she was coming out of a trance. "Oh, Narma," she said. She massaged the bridge of her nose. "I'm sorry; I must have forgotten to include you in the email. We would actually like you to take those to your sponsoring department. They'll come to me eventually, but we decided it might be nice to let them be displayed in your department temporarily until the internship is over." She quickly amended, "The departments still have the option to display a look permanently, of course. I'm excited to see what you made."

Narma sighed. _Well, that's one more trip across the building with this thing._ At least she could leave as soon as she dropped this off. Come on, she was in a rush here!

She couldn't help but feel a little pensive as she chauffeured her rack over the tracks in the floor. As much as she appreciated the internship, she almost wished it had happened at any other time. So much had been happening lately that she didn't feel like she had been able to really get into the experience, which sucked, considering this was her _passion_. All in all, it seemed to have just flown by. She could hardly believe it was nearly over.

She wished she had the opportunity to do it over again, but she guessed that was the thing about life—you didn't get do-overs.

She was hyper aware of phone in her pocket.

As she moved towards the labs, the sounds of her rack wheels on the floor was joined by a second pair. Narma already knew who it was, so she didn't say anything, but sure enough after a moment of being ignored Antoni sped up to what had to be an uncomfortable level and came up beside her. "So," Antoni said, voice tart. "You finished your project?"

"Yep," Narma said. No need to engage; Antoni was going to find something to be snotty about regardless, and she would just rather not deal with that right now on top of everything else.

True to form, Antoni didn't let the silence stand. "I finished mine a few weeks ago, but then I decided that the stitch-work wasn't good enough for the finals so I spent _hours_ this week going back over it. How is your stitch-work?"

Narma rolled her eyes. _Don't let her bait you, girl; she ain't even worth it._ "It's turned out how I wanted it."

From the corner of her eye, she saw the red-head's lips fall into a pout, dissatisfied with being brushed off. She straightened her shoulders, slowing in an effort to not seem like she had rushed to keep up. She lifted her head, heels clomping down the walkway. "Well, I guess we'll see which the department thinks is the best," she said.

Narma cracked her neck. "Guess we will."

_Dammit. I don't have time for this._

When they got to the labs, though, the assistants looked particularly fretful. Narma slowed down, moving as Antoni slipped in with her rack behind her. As the girl planted her hands on her hips, presumably looking for their sponsor, Narma turned to one of the assistants. _What a weird atmosphere._ "Hey," she said, and the man turned to look at her, adjusting his glasses. "What's going on? Why is everybody standing around?"

The guy turned to her more directly. "Oh. One of you." Wow, okay; a little rude. He plucked at his collar. "We're not sure what to do. Professor Morringer is acting really weird. She's been locked up in the basement all day." He bit his lip. "We have some new developments we want to go over with her, but we can't get her to answer."

Narma narrowed her eyes. _That is weird._ "Huh."

She paused, stepping away from her rack. She saw Antoni giving her a disparaging look as she opened the partition doors, peering through to the closed door leading to the basement stairwell. "And she's just...not answering?"

"No," another assistant piped up from nearby, leaning back against the countertop. "But we know she's down there; the door is locked. And she's, like, doing something with the lights. We can see them beneath the door.”

Frowning at the closed door, Narma stepped forward. She cupped her hands around her mouth, the assistants flinching as she called through the door. "Professor Morringer?" Her own voice reverberated back at her from the door's surface, but only on one side. _Nothing. Hm_. She tried again, calling, "Professor Mooringer, can you hear me? We're worried about you.’

She froze as she saw the lights above flicker. That...actually, now that she thought about it, had the lights at the Institute _ever_ gone out? She never got any messages about outages. But those were happening all over the city, weren't they? They'd hit basically everywhere when the Cryptids first showed up.

Feeling a pit of dread in her stomach, Narma reached down to the doorknob. Even though she knew they must have tried the knob, habit caused her to grab hold and turn. She jerked her hand away as heat raced up her fingers. She looked down to see the purplish energy of electricity spitting venomous from the handle.

She cradled her hand, a strong suspicion beginning to form. She turned to everyone else in the room. "We need to get in there."

The lights went out.

Soft yelps of surprise sounded throughout the room, and more in the distance told her it wasn't only happening where they were. A rumbling throughout the building sent a chill up her spine with its familiarity.

_This is bad._

She backed away from the door. "Shit. Change of plan. We need to get out of here." _I have to contact the others._

Antoni, of course, raised her voice to sound over the rumble. "I'm sorry, since when did you become group leader? I'm not going anywhere."

Narma stalked over and grabbed Antoni's arm, the girl yelling "Hey!" As she dragged her towards the door. The frightened lab workers flooded out behind her.

_I need to get these guys out of dodge. I can storm that door once I have some back-up._

Ever the multitasker, she reached in her pocket for her phone.

Sylvia could tell that Mallory was stressed, despite her sister's attempts to help at something she knew nothing about. That wasn't to say that Sylvia was any better—she didn't know about tracking monsters, and even less about tracking people. The last time they had needed to do that, it had just sort of worked out, so she was relying on that to be the case again with lack of anything better to do.

And the other girls’ cat friend was hurt, which made the atmosphere even worse. She's never known how to deal with other people's grief. The vibes were really just horrendous. So she hung back.

"Dammit!" The girl stood over her desk as Gwen hovered behind, Sylvia observing from Gwen's bed in their little loft. Mallory spat out, "This is getting us nowhere. That woman could have come from anywhere on the upper-east side. We have no idea what the treasure box even does, how—"

The lights in the room flickered.

The three of them froze. Sylvia may not have interacted with these creatures often enough to know too much about them, but the lights behaving improperly was never a good sign. Instinctively, her eyes moved to the floor, but the other two remained rigid.

Then their phones went off.

Sylvia reached for her own where she had been fiddling with it on the bed, knowing it wouldn't be the right stimulus to ease the grinding irritation in her hands but she was just going to have to fight through it because Giant Monsters.

She clicked the phone screen to life and a text from Narma blared up at her.

**hey, is everything good with you guys?**

**Shit is going down over here.**

**Pretty sure I need backup**

Mallory let out a groan as she read it too, eyes suddenly landing on the map. "The fucking Institute of Design, dammit. Guess where that is?"

"Right in the middle of that dead spot, I'm guessing," her sister grimaced as she began to gather up her stuff. She did too, digging her fingers aggressively into the knit texture of her bag.

"Until now." Mallory spat back, and they headed for the door.

They speed-walked out back towards their parent's run-down old mini-van, which they had mostly avoided using since they'd come here under the slight possibility of someone recognizing the plates. Desperate times called for desperate measures, though.

They filed into the car and Gwen quickly had them on the road, rushing towards the north side of the city. Mallory was slumped in her seat, and seemed to be sulking even though they were heading to fight the giant monsters anyways. "You shouldn't feel bad because you couldn't track the mother down,” said Sylvia. “You didn't even really have any information."

Slowly, Mallory turned to look at her, and Sylvia fought to keep eye contact, as a courtesy. "'The mother?'" she asked, looking somewhat disgusted.

Sylvia clarified, "You know. The mother. The queen. Whoever is giving birth to these things, and sending them out into the world." She gave a helpful scuttling motion with her hands.

Mallory closed her eyes, dragging a hand down her face. "Bug terminology. Of course. What did I expect." She plunked back in her seat.

Gwen spoke up from the wheel as she took the next turn at an unadvisable speed. Along the street, the lights were buzzing on and off like a rave _. Good thing no one here is epileptic_. "You did a good job researching us," she sucked up.

Mallory held a hand up. "Yeah, but I basically had your name. Not exactly rocket science."

"Too complicated for the police," Sylvia countered, feeling sassy.

Mallory flipped a finger back to her. "And I didn't even have to look for you--your info was right there when I found Gwen's. Why are you still going by Sylvia, by the way? I would have expected you to drop it when Gwen did."

Sylvia shrugged. Up ahead, a traffic jam blocked the road, and she heard Gwen curse as she detoured. "I'd been wanting to change my name for a while," she said. "My old name was too boring."

Gwen shrugged. "When we had to change it anyways, we decided to just go with something we didn't mind being called."

Mallory narrowed her eyes over her shades. "And you went with _Sarah_?"

"It's neutral," Gwen offered.

She slowed the car as the tall building with **Institute of Design** written vertically along the side came into view. "Whoa. Uh, guys. I think we might have company."

"Probably a fair assumption," she monotoned back sarcastically, staring at the big hole in the building's side.

They climbed out of the car, leaving it a little ways back. No reason to place themselves at the scene of the crime if they could help it, according to Mallory. That was fine--Sylvia wasn't sure anyway how she would react if their parents were to suddenly come strolling in mid-battle. Probably for the best.

They peaked around the hole. Sylvia eyed the shape of the markings from the impact. "Whatever made this had spines," she noted to the other two, indicating the cracks arching out from triangular shapes in the hole's outline.

"Great," Mallory grunted. "I can already think of two things that want to kill us with that MO. We should transform asap."

As they moved inside, a wavy of nausea swept over her. She rubbed her arms insistently, hating the buzzing sensation that prickled over them. “Ugh, it feels bad in here.”

“No kidding,” Mallory grumbled, peering around at the abandoned cubicles. “Lets go.”

The hid beneath a desk to transform as the lights flicked above them.

As they descended into the building, she couldn’t help but wonder what might be waiting for them.

Narma pulled Antoni through the halls as the herd of scientists shuffled behind her. There were screams resounding throughout the building now, and her heart was pounding. Nightmare scenarios flashed through her mind of all the things that might be waiting for them when they emerged into the main area.

Antoni barked shrilly, "Let go of me!" and finally wrenched her wrist out of Narma's grasp as the cubicles of the custom-order bullpen came into view. Papers were scattered on the floor, the desks empty and doors to the back thrown open.

_Where is everyone?_ She turned back to the group following them. "We need to get out of the building," she called out, and gestured for them to keep going.

"How do you figure?" Antoni shrieked. "You don't know what's going on any better than we do!"

Narma, sick of her shit, whipped around to face her. "There's screaming and the lights are flickering," she shot back. She narrowed her eyes. "That's happened every time one of those monsters has appeared."

Surprisingly, she watched a flash of nervousness cross Antoni's face. "...do you think one of those things could be here?"

Narma said, "I'm not sticking around to find out."

The group of them tromped through the building, the crunching and yelling only making her feel tenser as the neared the entrance. "We're almost there!" She cried back, knowing she might have been the only thing keeping these guys going towards the entrance.

When she saw the giant hunk taken out of the wall, she knew it was a bad sign. it became a worse sign as a wailing groan bellowed from behind it, and then a familiar goopy form began to push through the hole.

_"Shit—"_ Narma quickly reversed, colliding with the group that was following her. _I thought we got rid of that thing?!_ At least it just appeared to be the original model, based on the description Gwen and Mallory had given them before. No time now, though. There's an emergency exit in the cafeteria. "Change of plans," she said. "This way!"

As they neared the exit to the cafeteria, Narma froze to see a round white figure looming by the entryway. It was very still, but the familiar spikes jutting from its body glistened menacing in the florescent light. She brought a finger up to her mouth, glancing back to the others.

Her eyes stayed locked on what she knew to be the Urchin. This space was so narrow, and this thing was strong enough to bust through the cubicles that stood between them no problem. Narma took in a shaky breath. "We can't get past that thing," she whispered, barely audible. She hoped they could all hear her. "We need to hide."

Not turning their backs to the creature, Narma's mind raced, looking for somewhere she might be able to safely put these guys away. Her eyes widened—the fabrics room. It was a more out-of-the-way room and the fabric...maybe it would insulate them a bit? Make it more difficult to hear them? _Well, it's the best I've got for now._ She gestured them around the corner.

A little ways down the hall, she ushered everyone into the room. "Stay here," she whispered. "It's not safe to try and leave with those monsters at the exits. I'll go get help."

_"What,"_ Antoni called out, outraged.

But before she could protest, Narma said, "Don't let her leave," and shut the door.

She let out a breath and took off back in the direction of the cafeteria.

There was a closet just outside, so she ducked in and transformed into her Sailor Egeria uniform. Emerging from the closet, she peered around to make sure no one was there before creeping back into the open. As she neared the room, she heard tell-tale sounds of fright.

Heart pounding, she rounded the corner just in time to see the Urchin dart across the room, a stack of cubicles crunching beneath it, pierced through by spikes. There was an employee cowering by the wall, and before she could stop it the Urchin yanked the woman up and she shrieked before going limp. Narma winced as the creature tossed her carelessly behind it, where she jackknifed over top of cubicle's intersections.

_"Hey!"_

Narma's eyes widened as she heard the whisper-shout from somewhere in the room. Luckily, it didn't seem loud enough for the Urchin to hear, but as Narma's eyes scanned the room she caught sight of dark blue locks peeking from behind the far cubicles, along with one darkened lens.

Mallory, seemingly in her Decima uniform as well, waved her over.

Nervously, Narma glanced back to the Urchin. Slowly, keeping low, she crossed she room to her comrades. Turning into the cubicle revealed Gwen and Sylvia as well, as Sailors Fortuna and Gyges respectively. "I'm so glad you guys are here," she sighed. "Shit just went sideways."

"That's the creature that attacked the bus," Sylvia whispered, peeking subtly around the corner.

Narma nodded. "Yeah, and I saw the Miasma creeping in as I passed the entrance earlier."

The girls looked at each other. "Shit, it must have gone down the other hall; we didn't even see it," Mallory swore.

Gwen grimaced. "Just when we think we're rid of these things."

Sylvia spoke up. "Well, their maker is supposed to have that super strong box now. Maybe that gave them enough of a boost to bring them back."

A chill went down Narma's spine. She hadn't considered that, but it made sense. If so, it wasn't out of the question to think that Spindly Legs might be skulking around there somewhere as well. Great.

A stone sunk in her stomach. It also meant she had a pretty good idea where to look for the culprit. "...If that's the case, then I think I know where it is."

Mallory's eyes widened. "What? That's great!"

They all froze as the floor creaked nearby. "We need to move," Narma hissed. "No sense staying here where this thing might notice us."

They moved down the corridor, using the un-demolished cubicles as coverage. Narma was sure any second that thing was going to turn around and see them—she kept having horrific visions of the thing flying at them and having to watch her teammates be skewered like swiss cheese. Luckily, they seemed to get enough out of range that the thing couldn't see them anymore as they headed for the entrance.

Out of the frying pan.

As they reached the front of the building they were met with the sight of Sailors Boreas and Concordia mid-battle (damn, but she was happy her team had had access to vehicles that particular day.) It seemed that the Miasma had realized it wasn't where the action was and had come back.

Rory was blasting the guy with gusts to clear the...well, miasma away, as Carmen peppered him with Bellicosos. It seemed to have been working, as Narma didn't feel the miasma's pull with any marked intensity. The musical notes rang through the air as they set off tiny explosions all around it. The creature bellowed, the noise shaking the room.

_No point in staying hidden if this thing is already on the defensive._ Narma darted out from behind the cubicles, throwing her arms out. "Typhoon Strikedown!"

The trio of water blasts seemed more effective on this version of guy than it had been for it for its punked-out brother (an aesthetic which Narma could appreciate, for sure, but she certainly preferred this scenario.) The reverse geysers bored down into the monster's gelatinous flesh, forming large holes. Quickly, though, the holes began to fill in.

"Egeria!" Rory cried out thankfully, and her gratefulness only increased as she glanced over. "Decima, Gyges, Fortuna. Seems like kind of a mess you have here."

"Yeah, not great," Narma called back. "And there are some others running around too—at least the Urchin. Probably Spindly too."

Carmen panted, addressing the creature. "It's summer. Can't you guys go on vacation already? _Harmonious Bellicoso_."

Sylvia's eyes lit up with curiosity. "Can they understand us?"

"No, probably not," Narma grunted, shimming around the perimeter of the room. She pointed down the far hallway towards the back of the building. "I think the treasure box is down there."

Mallory ducked down defensively, eying the monster. "If that's what's powering these things, that should be our highest priority."

Rory sighed, morphing a Gust into a sharp drill-like shape and burrowing into Miasma's side. Damn. "Too bad this guy isn't just going to let us stroll out of here."

Gwen peered over to Mallory as Sylvia appeared to be...measuring the Miasma in hands? "You're still not 100%."

"That doesn't matter right now," Mallory frowned.

Gwen shook her head. "No, we should go after the box instead. Do you guys think that you're be able to hold off this guy by yourself?

Rory tilted her head. "This guy? Oh yeah."

Narma gestured down the hall. "You head all the way down and through two sets of doors. There's a room with a bunch of lab equipment, but the door is stuck."

Mallory held up two fingers, like the motion she usually used to summon her Chain. "Bet I can yank that thing off its hinges. Oh, wait," She suddenly stopped and made a crossing motion with her arms. " _Ill-Omen Descension!"_

As Narma watched, a plaque-like object appeared over the monster's head. It groaned, sounding angry, and began to undulate.

Narma narrowed her eyes. _Never seen that before_. "What is that?" She eyed the **V** on the plaque's surface.

"An assist. Should make this thing real uncomfortable when the countdown ends."

Sylvia nodded from the side. "I'll stay and help, then. Good luck. Don't die."

Gwen said, "We're going to try our damnedest."

Mallory and Gwen took off down the hall and Narma and Sylvia turned their attention back to their teammate's opponent. "Okay, well, time to get this thing handled, then." Narma stepped back, summoning another Typhoon. "Typhoon Strikedown!"

The downpour thrashed the monster, even the weird glyph above its head appearing damp. _You have to appreciate continuity in an attack, I guess._

Rory gave a little cheer. "Yeah! Take that!" She caught the residual dampness in a gust, using it to dispel the fresh wave of miasma in the air. She glanced to Carmen. "Think it would fall for the same trick twice?"

Carmen cracked her neck, raising her arms for a Bellicoso. "It wouldn't be the first."

The creature thrashed, bellowing furiously.

And then Narma watched, uncomprehending for a moment, as two gelatinous limbs glopped out of the bulbous mass. It slammed the hands down into the floor, its fat fingers digging up the carpet down through to the cement.

"Oh," she said, suddenly remembering why Mallory had been hurt in the first place. "Yeah."

They screamed and could hardly leap out of the way in time at the Miasma slapped its arms out, suddenly ripping through the room from one side to the other with seemingly little effort. Its slimy body left a pinkish residue behind that Narma did not feel good about at all.

Well, this just got decidedly worse. Maybe they shouldn't have split up after all.

There was a thumping nearby, and Narma turned down to look the other way. Apparently, they'd been too loud—she could only say "Aw, fuck," as she saw the Urchin barreling towards them like fucking Sonic the Hedgehog.

They might have made a bit of an error, there.

Mallory and Gwen, or more correctly Decima and Fortuna, pounded down the hallway at break-neck speed. Okay, not really—Mallory, despite what she had told the others was still not at 100% and wasn't the best runner even on her best days. Needless to say, though, if there was a time to haul ass it was then.

She just really hoped this battle wasn't going to end like her last active battle had ended. She could really do without any more abdominal trauma if she could help it.

She had mixed feelings about going to fight a door.

Gwen jogged beside her. She could tell the other girl was intentionally slowing herself down to stick by her, and as patronizing as it might have made her feel at any other time, right then it just made her feel like part of the team again.

Gwen glanced over. "So what are we going to do once this door's open?"

She shot back, "Investigate, I guess. Try to uncover the box."

Gwen frowned. "...do we have a way to contain it? If it's that powerful, I don't know if we're going to be able to just...touch it."

Hm. That was a good point. You didn't touch a live wire; you don't manhandle a magical box in Chaos mode. "Celene was carrying that thing around in her head," she said, suddenly uncertain. Their smallest comrade was out of commission, after all. Not the best reminder. "Still. We'll deal with that when we come to it."

They eventually reached the rooms that Narma had presumably been talking about, and Mallory's eyes widened at the lab equipment positioned all around the room. "Why do they even need this kind of set-up in a place like this?" They slowed, pushing a rack a familiar dresses out of the way as they avoided the equipment abandoned in the room. "Guess it doesn't matter now."

She moved towards the interior door, and, as they'd been warned, the knob sparked at them.

"That doesn't look like your average electricity," Gwen murmured, hovering behind her.

"No, it doesn't," Mallory frowned, pushing up her shades. "That's fine," she said. _I'll just have to not touch the door, then._

Standing back, she raised her two fingers, before making a sharp v-motion in the air. "Destiny Chain!”

Ugh, she could feel that the attack back in the front room was still draining on her resources; the chain seemed to suck more effort from her than normal. Even so, with a glow the chain burst from her fingers like a shot towards the door. One second she was calling on the attack, and the next the chain's sharp spade-like head had skewered the door.

"That'll work," she said. She wrapped her hand around the chain and stepped back, leaning her weight away from it as the chain grew taught. Gritting her teeth, she went a step further and wrapped the chain around her forarm, but the door still didn't budge. "Shit," she hissed; rubbing the sore spot on her arm. "Well, that's not doing it."

"Can I help?" Gwen asked, awkwardly hovering nearby.

Scanning the room, she caught sight of a piece of discarded PVC pipe leaning against a nearby desk. "...Yeah," she said slowly, "you can."

She set to work wrapping the chain around the PVC, before instructing her friend to take the other side. "Okay," she said as they each took one side of the pipe against their chests. "On the count of three, run forward as fast as you can. One, two.."

On three, they both barreled forward. A thrill of victory shot through her as she heard the wood splinter at the hinges.

Turning back around, they eyed the gaping maw of the stairs. "Well," Gwen offered, "no point delaying it."

Mallory nodded, though for some reason the sight of the busted door filled her with a decidedly bad feeling. "Right. Let's go."

They descended into the basement.

Narma blinked the stars from her eyes, struggling the regain her focus. She must have hit her head at some point, because her vision was a little foggy for a second and now she couldn't exactly remember where she was.

A familiar moan burbled through the air, and oh, yeah. In between two big freaking monsters.

She had dove out of the way as the Urchin catapulted through the room. It had only been quick reflexes that had saved her, as she hadn't heard the thing on the approach until the last moment.

Seemed the blow to her head hadn't fixed her ear. Bummer.

She dragged herself up, watching distantly as the Miasma's sudden arms shot out, it rapidly pulling itself over the cubicles as if they were made of paper. The movement seemed to have shaken loose more of its spores, as as it passed her, she felt a wave of weakness ooze through her. She grunted, forcing herself up on her knees.

Her mind whirled as she watched her teammates fight from a distance. Was Rory okay? Was Carmen? Sylvia only barely knew how to fight; how was she supposed to fight back against two of these things?

Shocking her, though, her eyes found Sailor Gyges in the corner. As the two monsters created more debris, she seemed to have no hesitation in turning the wreckage into projectiles, using her summoned Willow Whip to grasp the broken pieces and fling them back at the creatures with an ease that could never have come from her petite frame. Freaking magic, damn. Good for her being able to access some kind of super-strength with energy-sucking spores in the air.

Speaking of which. “Boreas!”

Rory turned to look at her as she called, and Narma put her arms out.

“This place needs a dusting!”

Rory gave her a thumbs-up and called on a gust to pick up the spores as Narma dampened them with a Typhoon. The air lightened, and Narma scrambled out from her little nook. _We need something better than this._

“Harmonious—ack!”

Narma whipped around to see the moment the Urchin grabbed Carmen off the floor and lifted her into the air. Carmen gave a wheeze as the creature squeezed, the energy flowing visibly off her like heat off the pavement on a hot summer’s day.

“Concordia!” Narma jerked in her direction, only to stop short when a pounding sound brought the Miasma directly into her path. She hissed through her teeth, forcing herself to stop before she touched it.

“Dire Stellar Gust, jerk!”

The creature seemed to gurgle as the attack swirled in a loop around it. Narma stumbled away, and soon Rory came up beside her in full Boreas mode. “Vortex?”

“Vortex.”

Across the room, she could hear Sylvia’s flat tone ring out coldly at the Urchin, “STOP. THAT. THAT’S. RUDE.” She ended the slashing motion on the monster’s arm with the weapon’s tails to let the momentum wrap them around the appendage. She dropped her full weight on the arm as though she were playing tug o’war, and Narma heard a tearing sound. _Holy shit._

Carmen dropped to the floor, coughing.

Narma snapped her gaze back to the monster in position in front of her.

The vortex blasted through the monster like a rain of bullets. As expected, though, the creature seemed mostly unaffected, stiffening for a moment before shuddering and filling the gaps.

Narma shook her head. “This isnt working!” Rory stepped back with her as the Miasma shook, goo sluffing off it as it slammed its meaty hands (ew) down on the office floor.

Another hit, and Rory rolled out of the way, stopping in a kneel. "Think we can make this thing eat it again?"

Narma grimaced, dancing away from some pounding slams. "Despite this guy’s big mouth, he doesn’t seem to want to open it very much."

Rory frowned, casting a gust to get its attention. "You are right there," she said, before calling out to their teammates. "How are you guys holding up?"

"Okay," Sylvia said lightly, all the while having a limp Carmen leaning into her for support. She seemed to have tricked the Urchin into storming them directly, its quills stuck into a cubicle partition she was using as a shield as it gave an irritated whir.

_Okay..._ well then. She called out to Carmen. “You alright, C?”

She sounded exhausted when she called back—dispelling the spores apparently didn’t undo the effect of the Urchin’s soul-sucking grip. “I’m fine,” she said. “I mean, could be better.”

“Fair,” she called back. Narma’s eyes drifted over their monstrous foes, to the space between them. _Huh. Wait a minute._ “You think you can stay in it a little longer?”

The Urchin wrenched at its obstacle, and Carmen called back over the noise. Narma was just glad that the distance seemed to distribute the sound evenly—not being able to communicate would suck especially hard right at the moment. Carmen grunted, “Don’t think I really have a choice!”

“Good,” she called back as the Miasma seemed to get its entirely metaphorical legs back. “Because I think I have an idea.”

The stairway emerged into a dingy hallway. Mallory could feel static dancing over every bit of exposed skin, strands of blue-dyed hair suspended in the air around her. "Something’s generating a lot of power down here," she grumbled as they cautiously moved into the new space.

Gwen walked stiffly beside her. She could tell she wasn't totally comfortable doing soldier work yet, no doubt in part due to how disastrously their first mission had gone wrong. Hell, though, she wasn't exactly the pinnacle of confidence just then, either. They had no idea what they were walking into here.

At the hallway's first room the door was standing open. Mallory half-way expected there to be someone inside, but the room was empty. Even so, there was something about the room's atmosphere that gave her pause. It just made her uneasy.

"I was really expecting...more," Gwen murmured after a moment, her voice loud in the quiet. The fluorescents were vicious, though, the buzzing noise permeating the atmosphere of the entire room.

"This must have been an old security room," Mallory whispered in response. No other explanation for the console full of screens in a place like this. She passed a table, and paused as she noticed open folders there. She jolted internally as she noticed one of the open files with Narma's name on it.

Delicately, she shuffled through the photographs on the table with a finger, examining the familiar likenesses of their squadron's original four in Narma's dresses. "Shit," she swore softly. _Well, that explains how they knew who we were._

Frowning, she raised her gaze to consider the rest of the room. "...mh. You're right. It's pretty spacious for a security room, but I don't see anywhere in here where they could store the tech needed to pull off the tricks they've pulled."

Gwen shot a thumb back to the hallway. "The other room was labeled a maintenance closet," Gwen said, tone skeptical. "Did you see the size of that hall?"

Ah. Mallory nodded. "Pretty big maintenance closet." She wiped her gloves over her bracers, trying to will the static away. "Approach with caution, then."

Gwen said, "Haven't been doing anything else."

Mallory was a bit surprised when they opened the maintenance closet and revealed, inside, a maintenance closet. She was equal parts stumped and suspicious, and Gwen leaned in beside her to look. "Huh."

Mallory narrowed her eyes, staring petulantly at a mop and bucket. No, she was sure there was something else here.

"Hey," Gwen hissed, then, pointing down. "Look."

Mallory's gaze shot down to seek out what Gwen had spotted.

"The cables," she said.

Sure enough, threaded through the bottom of the back wall were cables, and Mallory could tell from here they passed over into the room they'd just come from. Still, something...

She narrowed her eyes at their spot passing through the wall. It almost looked less like they were passing through, and more like it, the wall, was sitting on _top_. She frowned sharply, and indignation bubbling up that she hadn't felt so sharply since she had seen Gwen standing in that freaking fencing studio. She reached out to the back wall of the closet, and she brushed her fingers along the wall

Frowning with all the marked done-ness of Bert Sesame Street as he turns to the camera, she said, _"It's fucking fabric."_

Narma grabbed Rory’s hand, pulling her towards the other end of the room. “We need to get this thing facing towards the middle.”

Rory blew out a breath. “If you say so.”

Narma heard Sylvia call, “What should we do?”

“Face that thing our way!” She yelled back. “But...uh, don’t let it see us, if you can!”

They rushed to the far end of the office by the cafeteria, and the Miasma paddled after them, dragging itself along the wreckage of the office space.

“So what are we doing?” Rory pumped her arms, ducking down as the Miasma swiped out with it’s grimy a-little-too-human paws.

“We’re trying to make it follow us.”

Rory threw her hands up. “Oh! Well, we’re _good at that_!”

Glancing back at the Miasma, she blew out a breath to see Mallory’s Ill-Omen hit **III.** _Wish I knew what was going to happen at **I.**_

Sylvia thought that this was a pretty vague plan, but some direction was better than no direction. She eyed the pierced wall of cork in front of her curiously, holding it up with a hand to keep the thing from advancing. “These things aren’t too smart, are they?” If it were, it would have realized that it would have gone a lot farther trying to trample them than simply trying to grab them around this wall. _More to our benefit, I guess._

Carmen sighed, still leaning off her shoulders for support. “Now if only it weren’t too strong, either.”

Sylvia narrowed her eyes. “Still, this is surprisingly effective,” she mused, leaning out of the way of where its remaining hand was trying to reach around to her. “If we just had a lot of really big corks...”

Carmen snorted, and Sylvia raised her eyebrows suggestively.

Then winced. Oh, yikes, there it was again. The buzzing feeling took a sudden grip in her belly, and her stomach turned. On instinct, she brought a hand too it, only to gasp and put the hand back up when the barrier faltered.

Carmen gritted her teeth. “We can’t keep this up forever.”

Sylvia chewed her lip, a bad habit she had picked up when she was concentrating. “They just said this guy had to face towards them.” _And not to let it see them, but that seems kind of self-explanatory to me._

Carmen frowned, finally letting go and bracing her shoulder against the wall. “Well I can’t exactly Bellicoso him from here.”

Sylvia nodded. “Yeah, I don’t know if trying to pull this guy’s other arm off would be a good idea in this position.”

Glancing behind her, Sylvia saw they were about to run into the next row of downed cubicles. Wincing, she stretched to fling out her Willow Whip to grab up another partition. _That seems like a good way to not let it see them._

Oh! Wait! “Concordia!” That was right, wasn’t it? “I have an idea!”

“Yeah?”

“Okay, guys!” Narma called, breathing heavily behind them. “In about ten seconds—eep!” Sylvia glanced back to see the soldier drop a Typhoon where the Miasma’s eyes should be, seemingly to distract it. _How is it seeing us, anyways?_ The Urchin didn’t have eyes either. _Question for another time._ “Nevermind. Can you hold that guy there for like 30 more seconds?”

Carmen called back, “Yeah, maybe.”

“Good.” She said. “When I say so, _move,_ okay?”

“Okay. Agh!” Sylvia gasped as the creature suddenly seemed to catch on and rolled, some of its spikes dislodging from the cork. Another, however, pierced the barrier to stab into her hand.

“Syl—Sailor Gyges, are you alright?”

Ooh, that was a lot of blood. Her eyes pricked with pain as the wound throbbed. “Y-yeah,” she whimpered.

The monster wasn’t done though. Having figured out why it wasn’t moving, the monster began rolling rapidly, Sylvia quickly knocking the barrier sideways to cover them. “Take this!”

She whipped up the partition behind them to shove it off to Carmen, which gave them a larger block of protection except for the holes that were being punched through it at random. Sylvia struggled to keep her hand up as it dripped on the floor.

“We have to do something!” Carmen yelled, barely and gingerly holding up the partition. “It’s going to break through!’

They still might be able to do what she had been planning, but it was going to be way harder with this guy thrashing around. She clenched her teeth. “I need you to trust me here,” she said.

“Okay?” said Carmen.

Sylvia shot her a couple seconds of direct eye contact before breaking it. “We need to open the barrier.”

“What?!”

“Just a little bit!” She dug her boots into the carpet. The room smelled like ozone. “I’m hoping this guy will reach through!”

“Why—oh!” Suddenly, she seemed to get it. “Okay.” She hesitated. “Will we...still be able to hold it if we do that?”

Sylvia responded, flat, “I’m not sure.”

Carmen inhaled. “Okay. Well, more of a plan than I have.”

“Just a few more seconds, guys!” Rory yelled from...somewhere.

“Okay!” She turned her head back to Carmen. “On three.”

“Okay.” She nodded.

“One. Two. Three—”

They each backed up, just a little. A gap formed between them and the Urchin saw its opportunity. It thrust its gangly limb through the gap and grabbed for them.

“Now! Close it!” Each of them pushed together from their respective sides. The partitions collided with a slam, wedging the limb in the middle. It squealed, almost electronic sounding. It was trapped.

“Hold it still, guys! Get ready!”

Sylvia glanced behind with some alarm to see the other two herding the furious Miasma in their direction. Um. When...were they supposed to move, again? She was suddenly very uncomfortable, and her hands itched furiously at the buzzing on her skin.

Also, the gaping stab wound.

The Urchin’s limb flapped stupidly between them, long, but not long enough to reach either of them in their current position.

“Okay—now!”

Eyes widening, the two of them jumped back, wrenching the partitions from the creature’s spikes. As she might have expected, the Urchin immediately shot forward like a rocket to break free.

...and directly into the Miasma.

It was like time had been slowed down. They held their breaths as the two monsters seemed to stand in confusion for a moment, the body of the Urchin jammed half-way into the gooey mess of the Miasma. The two of them, surprisingly, didn’t seem especially worse for wear from the collision, but...Sylvia watched them tug. And thrash. The gelatinous body of the Miasma began to glow somewhat.

“Sailor Boreas! Hold them together!” called Narma. “Don’t let them come apart!”

Rory gathered up a Gust and looped it around the pair, enclosing them in a gale that she held together, muscles visibly straining and sweat beading on her brow.

“What’s happened?” Sylvia asked, turning to Carmen.

“It’s an endless feedback loop,” Narma answered instead, “They’re just stealing energy from each other.”

“Oh!” She stood there, mesmerized by the almost grotesque scene. “So...what’s going to happen?”

Narma pointed up above the pair where there was something floating. _“That’s_ going to happen.”

Sylvia recognized the attack Mallory had cast, the one she had totally forgotten about, about two seconds before the plaque ticked down to I.

δ

_Moments Before..._

Mallory and Gwen carefully made their way around the cleaning paraphernalia to push past the false fabric back of the closet. It was a shuffle. There was very little space for them and Gwen didn't think it would be a good idea to cause a ruckus at this juncture. Also, getting back out this way was probably going to be a pain. She just hoped there wasn't a scramble.

The room behind was significantly larger than it had first appeared, even bigger than the security room. There was another dark sheet clipped up to the ceiling that light flickered spastically through, turning their half of the room blue and burgundy in turn. She could feel the electricity—it pricked up goosebumps on her skin. She turned to Mallory, and the girl raised a finger to her lips.

They crept forward, and Gwen's jaw dropped as the change in angle revealed what the curtain was obscuring.

It was a machine. Its structure didn't appear too foreign on first glance, but it buzzed with energy and surrounded it in a pale purple haze. It reminded her of the sheen of the Miasma, but...that made sense. Presumably, this was the device that was creating them. Cords crossed the floor from one side to the other in thick ropes like muscle.

Off-center, she nudged Mallory to point out the golden box sitting within a round, clear casing. That had to be what they were looking for.

She watched Mallory creep forward, glancing behind the curtain and straightening at whatever she saw.

Mallory said, "Okay. We have to get the box out of there."

"Hold it."

They froze. Gwen turned slowly to where she had heard the voice call from behind her to see a woman pop up from behind the counter behind them. She raised her arms, aiming where she was holding something—it could have been a taser, maybe. A stun gun?

Bad news, basically.

The woman's gaze was obscured by blue and burgundy light, and her jaw was dropped open as she stared at them. "Amazing," she said. "This sort of technology is unprecedented; I don't recognize them at all." Gwen went to move and the woman clicked something on the side of the device—it gave a threatening snap. "No. Don't move. I do have to commend you; I didn't hear you on the way in at all."

Suddenly, a screen on the wall flickered on. Gwen blinked through the dimness and the image resolved into another woman on screen. She spoke. "I told you someone was creeping around. There's more on the first floor."

It took Gwen a second to realize why the image on screen so unsettled her, but then she swiftly turned back to the woman with the stun gun.

She glanced back and for between them. Hold on—that was the same person. The one on screen looked slightly different, she couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was, but unless she had a twin sister or something those were the same person. _How...?_

Gwen didn't know if Mallory noticed it or not, but the other girl didn't falter. "Put it down," Mallory ordered, voice hard. "I don't know who you are, but I can promise you you don't know what you're messing with. You can't control this—" she gestured back to the box, "—and besides, you can't get past both of us. You should surrender now, before anyone else gets hurt."

The woman laughed, but it sounded harsh. "That's exactly why I'm doing this," she forced out, and Gwen looked to Mallory, who shrugged, just as lost. The woman was apparently not done, though. "By the way," she said, "about that."

Gwen tensed as the woman hammered a sequence on her keyboard. Mallory jolted, looking as though she was about to rush forward, when a tingling sensation rushed over Gwen's body. Her gaze flashed down and, to her horror, she saw her uniform begin to flicker. She could see flashes of the clothes she was wearing out of uniform, blipping between the two like a bad television signal.

"Shit—" Mallory cursed behind her as the flashing resolved into their civilian clothes.

She untransformed them?!

The woman gave a victorious _hm_. "There. That should make you a bit easier to handle, now shouldn't it?" As she spoke, Gwen realized she could feel the sapping sensation that normally came with proximity to those Cryptids. Did she drain enough energy off them to cancel the transformation, then? _Has to be._ Now that she wasn't distracted by the flashing, she could feel the phantom weakness in her limbs.

Oh, this? This might have been bad.

Mallory scowled, though. "We can still take her," she groused, and the woman jabbed the stun gun out at them.

"I really don't recommend that."

Her name badge read PROF. ERIN MOORINGER; Gwen furrowed her brows. Why did that sound...?

"This contains 30,000 volts of electricity per hit. Not enough to kill you, but really, really unpleasant." Her eyes drifted over Mallory. "I recognize you, from the picture. Mallory, right?"

She heard Mallory inhale sharply.

Dr. Mooringer's gaze moved to her. "You, I don't know. That's okay." She gestured around. "I have a live feed right here, in case I should need it." She gestured to the screen, where her doppelganger stared back.

"We don't have time for this," the doppelganger said suddenly. "Quit indulging them and activate the machine. We're too close to stop now."

Mallory jolted, though, moving explicitly to block the Professor. "What exactly are you trying to accomplish here? Do you have any idea how many people you've killed or injured with your mad scientist schtick?"

The Professor grimaced. "You wouldn't understand," she said. "If you lost what I lost, you'd do the exact same thing."

"Erin," snapped the woman on the screen.

"S-sorry," the Professor stuttered, keeping the stun gun raised as she tried to move past them. "Don't try to stop me," she said.

Gwen stared at the weapon, trying to figure out how to get at her without being incapacitated. It was frustrating, knowing it was something so small, just pain, but knowing if they did this the wrong way, they might not stay coherent enough to stop whatever this woman was trying to do.

The question was answered for her, though.

Mallory, still a bit behind her, said "Get ready for an opening," not trying to disguise the warning from the other occupant of the room cautiously creeping forward.

Gwen floundered mentally for a moment. "And what's your plan for that?"

Mallory didn't hesitate. "My plan is she can only taze one of us at once—"

Gwen didn't have time to react before Mallory darted forward, the woman giving a yelp as she collided with her full-body. Even so, the moment she made contact there was the ugly snap of electricity as she dug the stun gun into Mallory's shoulder.

Gwen moved. She saw Mallory grit her teeth, paralyzed with pain and Gwen kicked the shit out of the Professor's arm. The woman let out a cry as her arm fell back, the stun gun dislodging from her grip. Gwen kicked it across the room in the same moment. "You okay?" she called out to Mallory who was still tense all over.

"—yeah," Mallory grunted. "That fucking hurt."

The professor tried to shimmy out from under her, but Mallory didn't give her the satisfaction. Going limp, she brought an elbow down forcefully against the woman's collar bone, and the professor choked. "I'll hold her down," Mallory said. "Go turn the machine off."

Gwen darted behind the counter at the front of the room.

The professor shouted "NO, don't—" pulling an arm free to reach out to her.

Mallory managed to keep her grip as Gwen's eyes moved frantically over the different devices along the countertop, all hooked up to the massive machine.

"GODDAMMIT ERIN YOU NEED TO GET UP AND MOVE—"

Gwen reached up and unplugged the monitor, cutting off the Professor's panicking double.

"No—" Erin cried again, struggling.

Mallory took the straight-forward approach. She tightened her gripping, grappling the woman in a way that looked decidedly Not Comfortable. "How do you turn off the machine?"

"You can't," the professor snapped.

"Bet you can," said Mallory.

The woman glared, baring her teeth. Gwen almost felt bad for her, the woman looking pathetic and decidedly upset. Then she remembered what she had done and redoubled her determination. "You can't," she said, and this time it sounded like a plee. She turned her eyes over to hers and Gwen tensed, uneased by the desperation in her eyes. "Listen. You can't break the machine. It's my only chance to save my daughter."

Mallory looked over to her. "...okay, you're going to need to elaborate." She didn't loosen her grip.

The woman exhaled harshly. "She died many years ago, and this is my only chance to stop it!"

Mallory and she looked to one another, equally blindsided, it seemed.

The Professor narrowed her eyes at them. "With that box, I can change the past. I'm so close; I just have to get the message to reach just a little further! It's so close—"

Gwen grimaced as she saw how blurry the woman's eyes had become. Damn. Why couldn't it have been easy? She wasn't expecting an ethical quandary, coming here! Then something struck her. “Wait. This thing can send messages to the past?”

“Yes,” the professor insisted. “You have to let me send that message, or this all was for nothing!”

Mallory gave a long sigh. “Dammit.” She closed her eyes, squeezing them as though to fight something off. Finally, she spoke. “Professor. You have hurt hundreds of people.” She paused. “If this machine comes at the price of those people, we can’t let you run it. Besides. The risk is too high.”

Gwen was startled, heart pounding at Mallory’s rapid judgement.

Mallory must have seen her glancing over for an explanation, because she looked up to stare back at her grimly. “You change something in the past,” she said slowly, it could cause irreparable damage. That’s not sci-fi talking; that’s common sense. You change one thing, who knows what else might change? It could be catastrophic.”

The professor’s expression morphed into one of panic. “No—listen. This device is changing things in real time. If something terrible was going to happen, it would have happened already.”

Mallory cursed. “Well you haven’t made this thing perform the final act, yet, have you? With that much power? You could blow up the city! Gwen, take it apart.”

A pang of empathy still ringing in her chest, Gwen started looking around the controls. “I’m looking for some kind of release mechanism,” she called over. “Don’t exactly think it’s a good idea to just bust this thing open.”

“Fair,” Mallory gritted out as the professor kicked and elbowed back at her. “Just try to hurry.”

Suddenly, a surge went through the room. They collectively looked up as the lights buzzed wildly, the machine suddenly writhing with a wave of new energy. It didn’t seem to like it—what Gwen would have classified previously as a mildly intimidating generator suddenly seemed almost hostile, purple energy sluffing off of it in waves that made her toes tingle in her boots.

Mallory said, “What the hell was that?”

The professor wailed. “What have you girls done? Oh god, this was the only shot, oh god—”

Smoke cleared in the air as the monster’s implosion racketed through the room. Sylvia hated the disgusting dizziness that sunk over her, a jitteriness setting into her finger and she rapidly swiped them over her skirt as though to wipe it off. S _top stop STOP stop._ The friction warmed her hands, distracting from the sensation enough to be manageable.

“Well,” Carmen said finally, rubbing her middle, “that was faster than I was expecting.”

Rory leaned over on her knees, panting, “Y-yeah. I...guess it was like, pure energy, right? Maybe that’s why? We have seen those guys straight disappear before.”

Narma spoke up, straightening. “We need to go find the others,” she said. “I don’t think the Professor could fight her way out of a paper bag, but if she made these things, who knows what else she’s got in her back pocket. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Sylvia wrinkled her brow as they started down the hall. “The Professor?”

“Chick that’s doing this.” Narma sighed, ushering them down the corridor Gwen and Mallory had taken off down a while before. “Don’t know why, but we need to shut her down.”

Actually, it had...been kind of long, hadn’t it? Sylvia’s stomach twisted.

They dragged themselves to the far side of the building, trying to jog but having to slow from the exertion they had spent.

“We’re almost there,” Narma called back.

And then Rory cried out, stumbling back. “WHOA, hey there. Guys, we’ve got company.”

She braced herself and they turned to see a spiky looking fellow approaching from down the hall.

Oh, wait. She remembered this one. This was the creature that Narma and Mallory had fought when she’d been trapped in the bus. She’d caught sight of it from the windows. She reached down, and the sight of the creature sparking ahead reminded her of the tingling sensation still racing over her legs and she rubbed them, annoyed.

Her mouth twisted. She didn’t have time for this—it had been way too long since they had heard from Gwen. Or Mallory.

Anxiously, she turned to the door as she glanced askew over her shoulders at the others. “Do you guys think you’d be able to handle this thing? I want to check in with the others—they’ve been gone a long time.”

Rory cracked her neck. “This thing? Sure. We got it.”

“Yeah,” Narma said. “Go make sure those two aren’t getting their asses handed to them. We’ll hold this down.”

“Thanks,” she said, before continuing down the hall.

The tingling was only getting worse.

Mallory seemed to be getting sick of this. “Do you see this?” She snapped at the full-grown woman she was barely keeping still. “That thing is obviously unstable. You need to tell us how to turn it off.”

“There’s no turning it off!” She shouted, squirming viciously in her grip. “Once the power source is logged in, the energy potential is already being stored. It has to be released, or it will just break.”

“So we let it break?” Gwen suggested weakly. She wished Mallory and herself could have been in opposite positions—she would bet she was less familiar with this theoretical stuff than Mallory was; maybe she might be able to make some sense off it.

Mallory hissed back, “Blow up the city, remember?”

“Shit, right.” Gwen let out a shaky breath. One wrong move might cause this thing to explode. She couldn’t help but be frustrated—this was such a shit situation.

She eyed the screen in front of her, picking out individual pieces of information. “...there seems to be a set of coordinates entered here.”

“It’s my house, nine years ago. Don’t touch it,” the professor snapped. “AS I SAID, I was trying to send a message back.”

Gwen’s eyes fell to something in the bottom corner. “Hey, wait—there’s a command input.” She needed to calm down. This woman was a scientist—scientists tried to make their processes replicable, right? There had to be a logic to this.

“Nice,” said Mallory. “There a key anywhere?”

“Stop,” the professor shouted.

Gwen scanned the sea of information on screen. The line at the bottom didn’t seem to say anything. Could that have been it? There was an indicator that read CTRL-KEY. “Yeah, hold on.” Worth a shot.

She clicked the button, and a list came up. “Yes.”

1 COOR – COORDINATE ENTRY

2 TRAN – TRANSMIT SCREEN (+FUTR, PAST)

3 PORT – DISPLACEMENT (+FUTR, PAST)

4 OTPT – ENERGY OUTPUT [CRITICAL**]

5 SCPN – SPECIMEN STATUS

Gwen narrowed her eyes. There were a couple more listed, but one entry seemed out of place. “What does ‘displacement’ mean?”

The professor gave her a withering look. “It means don’t touch it. It’s untested. I was toying with trying to transport something physical through time,” she indicated a pad on the floor, “but I never had sufficient energy output.” The machine gave a threatening whir, “WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS. I was only just able to get the machine to a viable stability before you two showed up and ruined it, I don’t even know if it’s going to work but this is the only chance, you have to let me back on the console—”

They were all surprised at the sound of footsteps pounding down the stairs. Gwen breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, backup.

Sylvia came through the door and startled, looking down as her uniform flickered and disappeared. “Whoa, uh—”

Her questioning gaze froze when she saw the woman on the floor.

Her expression went completely blank for a second, and she tilted her head at the woman on the floor.

A deep frown settled over her face. “Do I...know you?”

Erin Mooringer laughed. It was soft, and pained, and she brought her hand to cover her face. Mallory and Gwen looked at her, alarm bells suddenly ringing in Gwen’s head.

And the professor said, calmly, “You’re too late.”

Erin was filled with a sense of peace.

God, it had been so long. It felt like the weight of self-loathing in her chest had broken open and, finally, disintegrated. Tears slipped down her face, and in her opponent’s moment of confusion, she broke free.

The girl holding her down gave a yelp of indignation, but didn’t catch her. Still, she didn’t go far. She merely brought herself to stand.

She tried to breathe. She said, “Emma.”

The girl Mallory behind her gave an incredulous “Emma?”

Emma stared back at her, just over her shoulder. Erin knew not to be hurt by it; Emma had always struggled with that. Still, Emma frowned. “How do you...” she saw the moment she realized, the moment she remembered. What _did_ she remember? Her gaze snapped forward, and her mouth dropped open. “... _Mom_?”

“Oh, shit,” she heard the other girl, Gwen, was it? Gasp. “Oh shit.” Gwen took a step back. “ _Mooringer,_ I knew I recognized that name. Mallory, she’s Sylvia’s _birth mom_.”

“No fucking way,” Mallory swore.

She ignored them. Erin brought her hand back to her face, chuckling into her palm as tears poured down her face. “You’re too late,” she whispered, wiping her eyes. “It’s going to happen. If she’s here, then this timeline is already on course—that message has to have been sent to have prevented her death. You can’t stop it.”

Emma went stiff. “ _My death?”_

“It’s okay,” Erin hushed. “I won’t let it happen again.”

“Shit,” Mallory breathed behind her. “Shit.”

She cleared her blurry gaze enough to look to the girl at the console. “You know her?”

Gwen stared back, horrified. “She’s my _sister_.”

Erin braced herself on the counter, shaking her head. She laughed softly. There was nothing more to worry about. “Then you know. This has to happen.”

Erin’s head shot up as Emma started screaming.

Mallory had known Sylvia’s real name was Emily.

She’d seen it in the Amber Alert. _Gwen Kingsley and Emily Kingsley._ Of course, that didn’t help her now—she couldn’t have known they were going to be in this position, or at least that’s what she told herself.

So when Sylvia started screaming, she knew it was a bad freaking sign.

They all shot straight as the girl put her hands over her head, and to her horror the girl began to flash with blips of light like a glitching program. Sylvia grit her teeth, curling up into a ball on the floor as the light strobed over her.

Gwen rounded the console to go to her and the Professor took that opportunity to dart for it. Mallory jumped up, darting after her.

“What’s happening?” Gwen shouted from Sylvia’s side.

“No, no, no, see?!” The professor had returned to full panic mode. “This is why we can’t wait! We have to send it back now or this timeline will destabilize!”

She wasn’t fast enough. She tapped over something on the keyboard before Mallory growled, wrenching her away from the console. “HEY!” She barked. She yanked back her shoulder, and the woman glanced back at her over her glasses. “What did you just do?”

“I initiated the output sequence—you can’t stop it now—” Suddenly, the purplish glow of the machine shifted, taking on a bright green hue, power surging around the Cosmos Treasure Box. The professor’s eyes widened. “I—wait, no. That’s not supposed to happen. The parameters I entered were exactly precise—” she stopped suddenly, and Mallory gave a shudder as her pupils visibly dilated. “What did you press.”

Gwen, hands still hovering over Sylvia, unsure. “W-what?”

“What did you press? I had everything. PERFECT. This isn’t the transmission sequence. This is the transport sequence— _what_.” She inhaled sharply, and Mallory watched her, a little bit terrified at the wild look in her eyes. “What have you done.”

Gwen gaped. “I didn’t push anything! I swear!” She looked terrified, eyes flicking between the Professor and her sister.

“You...you’ve ruined everything.” Erin’s hands shook, and Mallory was almost tempted to let go of her only to get some distance. “YOU—!”

Erin lashed back at her, and Mallory dodged out of the way. No longer was she just trying to get away—she was full-on attacking.

Mallory hissed through her teeth as she held her back, the woman reaching down to grasp at her. Gwen shouted something as the professor shoved forward with a scream, and Mallory managed to get her just to the side enough that the professor’s own momentum worked against her. She flew from Mallory’s grip past her towards the floor, her head colliding with the edge of the counter. In a moment of shock, her outburst was cut-off mid-cry, and she sunk to the floor, unconscious.

Mallory’s heart pounded, frozen as adrenaline coursed through her.

But the machine was still blaring behind her.

She snapped out of it with a jolt as she met Gwen’s gaze. The girl shouted, “Fuck—we have to move!”

They moved to the console. Gwen resumed her place, looking back over the controls that she had been fiddling with before.

“I-I really didn’t touch it,” she said weakly. She was shaking as though she was the one with some kind of electrical time current running through her. Not that Mallory was any expert on that. Her gaze flew over the different parts of the screen. “T-there has to be something we can do.” Gwen peered over to her, eyes wide and glassy.

Mallory’s exploring gaze fell to a small indicator in the corner— _remote signal received_. She frowned, but didn’t mention it. That was something to wonder about another time.

There was a grim weight in her chest, knowing what she knew now.

Gwen bit her lip. She blatantly couldn’t keep her gaze from drifting to her sister, still curled up on the floor. “There has to be some way to fix it. If the professor makes the machine, all those people—”

“Gwen.”

Gwen finally seemed to realize that Mallory wasn’t contributing. “What?”

She ducked her head, staring at Gwen over the lens of her glasses. Reaching out, she placed her hand on Gwen’s shoulder, and the other girl stared at it as though it were some sort of parasite. “If she doesn't,” she said grimly, “Sylvia dies.”

Even though she must have understood it, Mallory regretted having to cause that stricken look to cross her face.

Gwen took a step back. “I'm not—” Sweat beaded on her forehead. “This—that's not fair.”

Mallory pursed her lips. She was making the choice to not speak her mind here—it wouldn’t help anything. Her stomach soured. It didn't matter that life wasn't fair, that Gwen had a family and chose to leave, that she could have everything fall in to place because she wanted it to. Mallory wasn’t the one being faced with this choice. This was a terrible choice.

“We can’t let those people die.” It was said definitively. Just as quickly, though, Gwen’s gaze fell to her sister. “But—” Her hands hovered indecisively over the keyboard.

And the most daunting factor in all of this probably hadn't even occurred to her.

Gwen stared across to her, obviously looking for some sort of feedback.

Mallory swallowed. She had no choice. She had to tell her. “Gwen.” She took a breath. “We have to use the machine.”

Gwen frowned. “But—you said it could blow up the city?”

Mallory thrust a hand out to Sylvia, pulse pounding. “Weren’t you listening? You’re _going_ to do it.” Mallory held up a hand, trying to stay rational even as the machine blared green light behind her. “That’s it. It’s done. The fact that she’s here proves that it’s inevitable.” It was freaking destiny. Sometimes, she hated being right.

“That’s—” Her brow furrowed, and then Gwen’s expression twisted into something angry. “No. That's bullshit. There has to be another way.”

“You _already did it_ , Gwen.”

Gwen jerked back, gritting her teeth.

Mallory’s fist shook, but she kept her voice level. “We don’t do it? We create a paradox.” The problems rose in her mind like popcorn kernels popping. “Ugh, but if we _do_ use it, we create a paradox, shit.”

Gwen clutched the edge of the console, rolling her eyes in frustration. The noise behind them was deafening. “What does _that_ mean?”

She took a deep breath. “Let’s say we go back and stop her from making the monsters. Then who creates the machine?”

Gwen blinked, seeming to consider it for a moment. Then her brow furrowed. Mallory could practically hear Gwen's heart thudding with anxiety. Slowly, her sea-green eyes gained a wildness. “What are we supposed to _do_ then? There's no solution! Either way, we're—" she froze.

Gwen's eyes met hers, and a little spark of panic shot off spastically in her belly at the raw fear in her gaze. “Is this it?” She asked. “Is this the kickback from all the close calls recently? Is this the payback? A problem with no solution.”

Mallory bit her lip. They were running out of time. They had to do _something,_ they couldn't do nothing.

Erin had to make the machines to save Sylvia. But if Erin made the machines, people would die. If Sylvia was saved, Erin would never make them. It was a double-edged sword.

“What if...” She turned to see Gwen biting her lip. “What if we ignore the machine?”

Mallory’s brow twitched. “ _’Ignore them._ ’”

“Just...” Gwen took a shaky breath. “Ignore the paradox. Just try and save her, and...who cares about the machines?”

Mallory stared at her, resisting the urge to wipe her glasses. “...that won’t work, Gwen. It'll be a paradox.”

“So?” Gwen stared her down, narrowing her eyes. “You said it. _We already did it_.”

Mallory closed her mouth soundlessly. _But the professor said this machine was changing the past in real time, that's..._

The girl moved back to the transmission information. Mallory moved to read over her shoulder. “Gwen, I don't think—”

“We don’t have Sylvia’s information,” Gwen murmured. “I don’t think this will let us pull her out of there.”

Oh, she might have been freaking out a little. “Gwen, this is a dangerous game you’re playing.”

Gwen quirked a brow at her. “More dangerous than this thing blowing up the city?”

Mallory grimaced. “Eh...” She shot a look at the Treasure Box. She wasn’t sure it would blow up, but she wasn’t confident it _wouldn’t_ with the way it was sparking.

As if to demonstrate, it decided to give a particularly violent snap. She jumped back. “Shit! Fine, fine!” She leaned over the keyboard. “It does have the professor's...god, did she use her DNA?”

She eyed the temporal coordinates on the screen. Besides the first set, there was only one other set of information logged in a similar format. She pointed a finger to it. “Where does that go to?”

Gwen's fingers hovered, before moving the cursor to select the second coordinates. “I don't know.”

A selection screen came up—if Mallory was as technologically competent as she thought she was, it looked like a from and a to. She watched Gwen erase the entry labeled CURRENT TEMPORAL LOCATION in the from category. “Wait what are you doing—"

“We can’t pull Sylvia out,” she said, wide-eyed. “What if we pull the _professor_ out?”

Mallory swallowed. “I don’t...I don’t know what that would do.”

Of course, poetically, it was that moment red text began flashing on screen. Gwen stiffened, eyes locked on the red test scrolling across the black stating DANGER, CRITICAL THRESHOLD EXCEEDED. “I-I can't do it,” she whispered, clenching her teeth. Her gaze was locked on the final trigger: the conspicuous lever beside the console that couldn’t be anything but an ignition. “Mallory, I can't. What if I kill us? What if I kill _her?”_

Mallory shook her head at the anguish on her face. She couldn’t hear Sylvia anymore; she didn’t want to know if she was merely drowned out by the machine, or—

“If we don’t do anything, people will _definitely_ die.” Her head whipped around as the machine gave an ominous whirring. “Gwen, we’re out of time. Do it now!”

She turned back just in time to see her hand on the lever.

Everything went white.


	16. Chapter 16

**Episode 16: Synthesize**

A suburban home filled with green light. A flash.

Quiet.

Emma blinked her eyes open, and her first thought was that it was really bright? Stretching, she sat up, peering outside her window. Yeah, the sun was up. Shouldn’t she have been getting ready for school? Mama must have slept in.

She didn’t like being late—she hated hated hated the way people stared at you if you walked into class while it was already going on. She should probably wake her up. Ugh, she was still tired, though. Why did you have to go to school? School was dumb.

Stretching, the small girl crawled out of bed, shivering at the cool floor on her bare toes. She yawned, then called into the hallway. “Mama? You gotta get up now, it’s daytime.”

Her blanket dragged along behind her—it was too cold to be up now. It was quiet and she yawned again, pushing the door open to her Mama’s room. “Mama, it’s time to get up.”

She blinked for a moment when she was close enough to see that her mama wasn’t in bed. Huh. Maybe she went to the bathroom.

But the bathroom was empty.

She went into the kitchen. Maybe she was making some breakfast? But she frowned at the empty table, no scent of food in the air. Just quiet. She wasn’t in there either.

A twisty feeling started in her belly, and she frowned. “Mama?” She called it out a little louder. Maybe she just couldn’t hear her? “Mama? Where are you?”

There was no answer. Moving to the window, she looked outside, and the car was there. She hadn’t gone anywhere.

A really, really bad feeling started to rise, and her heart pounded.

Dropping the blanket, fully awake now, she ran back into the hallway, tears began to well up in her eyes. Where was she? She couldn’t have just left her there, right? But she wasn’t anywhere! “Mama? Mama, where are you?!”

No response. Not knowing any way to feel but scared, she did what you’re supposed to do in an emergency: she went to the phone.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Where’s my mama?” She sobbed. “I can’t find her, where is she?”

\--

Officer Conrad peered through the glass at the girl sitting in the interview room. The child therapist they’d brought in sat talking to the girl, though she still refused to look at her. He wouldn’t’ve guessed they were making much progress, either—girl had her hands plastered over her ears.

One of the rookies, Katelyn Winsor, stopped as she passed the room, staring inside along side him. “Aw, is that the kid? What’s the deal with her, anyways? Dispatch has been talking.”

He crossed his arms, frowning. “Her mom is missing. Kid woke this morning and she was no where to be found. We’re trying to track down the mom, but her car was still at the house, so it’s not looking good.”

Winsor’s eyes widened. “Oh my gosh. Poor kid. She couldn’t be staying with a friend or something?”

He lowered his chin. “Kid said she didn’t have any friends around town. We’re still checking it out, though.” He sighed.

Winsor peered through the glass. On the other side, the little girl avoided eye contact with the woman who was trying to talk to her. She looked lost, long caramel blond hair curling like a shroud around her shoulders.

It was crazy how someone could just disappear like that—kid must have gone to bed last night thinking everything was safe and sound.

Cruel world.

Winsor leaned back, crossing her arms. She turned to him. “What’s going to happen to the kid if the mom’s not found?”

He shook his head. “As far as we can tell, she has no other family. We’d have to turn her over to the foster system.”

“That’s rough.”

Emma stared around the arm of the social services agent that was serving as ambassador for her now, trying to catch a glimpse of the people in the doorway without them trying to look at her. She remembered them—they seemed nice, and they had a girl her age, but she didn’t feel like this was going to go well. Nobody liked her—they got annoyed with her or tried to get her to look people in the eye, which made her skin crawl. The last people she had fostered with hadn’t let her fidget, which was even worse, but this lady hadn’t minded when she had to keep both hands on her shirt their entire first meeting.

Still. She wasn’t sure what to think.

She froze when she saw movement from behind the bland-looking couple. Curiously, she peered across the space to see another girl emerge from a similar place to herself, peering across curiously. She quickly looked away.

“You remember the Kingleys, don’t you, Emma?” Her social worker shuffled her forward, into the open. “That brought someone to meet you.”

While it was obvious who they were talking about, she still leaned away from the group as those they were some kind of infectious disease.

The couple peered to each other, something like anticipation glittering in their eyes, The man kneeled down, as though to be on level with her. He offered his hands, which after a moment of awkwardness, she took. “It’s good to see you again, Emma,” he said, and she shied away, even as she let his tentative grasp on her hands continue. “We wanted to introduce you to our own daughter, Gwen. Emma eyed the girl warily, subconsciously shrinking.

But, after a second, she continued to stare as, unexpectedly, a little hand waved from behind the mother.

It just kept waving, the other girl peeking out from behind her parent. Cautious, but interested, Emma slowly raised her hand and waived back.

Erin gasped as the world appeared around her.

The light dimmed. Her head spun as she tried to get up, and slipped in the dust. Dust kicked up in all directions, and she pulled herself up, coughing as she struggled to get her bearings.

She looked around. Her eyes scanned the landscape, and her jaw dropped: surrounding her on all sides, there seemed to be an enormous stone palace. The polished white surface of the buildings glistened with the light of the sun, giving the atmosphere around her an almost ethereal feeling. All around, there were stars in unending sheets across the atmosphere. Where... am I?

She looked up.

She gasped, as the blue face of planet earth stared back at her.

Instinctually, she clamped her hands over her mouth. Was she...was she on the Moon?! Slowly, she lowered her hands away, staring at them with distrust. Somehow, she seemed to be able to breathe.

Her mind wrestled with the impossibility like a background buzz as another thought arose: Emma. Where was Emma? Was she here? Or was she a million miles away, on Earth? What was she saying! Even if she were here there’s no way her little girl would be safe on the moon all by herself! Taking a deep inhale (how,) she looked around herself. She needed more information.

Abruptly, she stopped her wild question: not far from her and surrounded with a corona of moon dust was a machine. It didn’t look like anything she could name right off the bat, but it did look like a device of great importance. Maybe...some sort of NASA equipment? But where did the palace come from? Better than nothing, I suppose.

She moved to the screen and was relieved to see the readout in English. She hadn’t known what to expect.

Even more surprising, though, was the revelation that the first word on screen was her name. ERIN.

ERIN. I HOPE YOU WILL FORGIVE ME FOR LYING TO YOU, THOUGH I UNDERSTAND YOU WILL NOT HAVE A POINT OF REFERENCE REGARDING WHAT I TOLD YOU AS OF NOW. IF YOU ARE EVEN ABLE TO READ THIS, IT WILL BE A FEAT OF INCREDIBLE LUCK AND A TEMPORAL ANOMOLY BESIDES. WE HAVE NEVER BEEN A RELIGIOUS WOMAN, BUT I CAN ONLY PRAY THIS MESSAGE REMAINS TO TELL YOU.

‘We.’ Erin narrowed her eyes. Was that a typographical error? She shook her head—not important right now.

THIS MACHINE IS A DEVICE FOR MOVING THROUGH SPACE AND TIME. THAT FACT THAT YOU ARE HERE MEANS THAT IT HAS SERVED ITS ORIGINAL PURPOSE, AS DIFFICULT AS THAT MAY BE TO BELIEVE. THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER IS THIS: IF THE MACHANATIONS HAD NOT BEEN PUT IN PLACE TO TRANSPORT YOU HERE, TO THE KINGDOM OF THE MOON IN THE 30TH CENTURY—

Erin’s stomach dropped. _What?_

_\--_ YOUR DAUGHTER, EMMA, WOULD SURELY HAVE DIED.

One punch to the gut after another. A panic began to sink in that she hadn’t dealt with since grad school. This...this couldn’t be happening.

THAT BEING SAID, EMMA IS ALIVE AND WELL IN THE TIME IN WHICH YOU LEFT HER. DUE TO THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF HER RESCUE, I MUST EMPHISIZE YOU CANNOT EVER GO BACK TO THE TIME FROM WHICH YOU HAVE JUST DEPARTED.

BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN YOU WILL NEVER SEE HER AGAIN.

HERE IS WHAT YOU MUST DO.

Gwen sat up.

It was disorienting in a way she had never been disoriented before, not even in the dark of the forest with a monstrosity sloshing through the trees at her.

Wait. When had that...happened?

She squeezed her eyes shut. When she tried to open them, the room was bright and she winced away from it. It’s...no, it’s just fluorescents, it’s...

“Are you okay?”

The lab.

Gwen gasped, prior reluctance forgotten and when the light seared her throbbing retinas she ignored them. Her hands came down to ground her, and the blurry blue blob (ugh, please no more blobs,) before her resolved into the form of Mallory, kneeling before her. It took her a second to remember she had been asked a question. “I think so,” she said. Besides the headache barreling towards her like an oncoming train, she felt essentially intact, if not a little fragile in her civilian clothes. “What...happened?”

Mallory’s face as it came into focus was tinged with confusion. At least I’m not the only one in a daze here. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I know we were going to start something, but then...”

They seemed to realize at the same time, their wide eyes reflecting one another as they shot straight, and Gwen’s stomach dropped. “Sylvia!”

“Ow.”

Gwen whipped around, peering back around to the other side of the console.

Sylvia pushed herself up to sit, bringing her hand to her forehead. “Ugh, jeez, what happened?”

She hadn’t consciously decided to move before she was throwing her arms around her sister’s shoulders.

Oh, oh _God_. All of the stress that she’d gone through in just the past hour came flooding in, and she could hardly breathe as she squeezed her sister against her. Sylvia felt tiny and tense in her arms, but she slowly relaxed, squeezing back. “Hey, stop that,” she said teasingly, but there was a softness in it. She was okay. “You’re embarrassing yourself in front of your girlfriend.”

Mallory squawked behind her.

After a long moment, they disengaged the hug and moved to stand surrounded by the quietness of the lab. Sylvia kicked her legs idly, maneuvering about the room. “So...what exactly happened? I remember coming in here, and then...my mom showing up? Or she was already here; you know what I mean.”

Gwen placed her hands on her hips, glancing around the still, unelectrified space. “We don’t exactly know. We were trying to do something with the machine, but what it actually did is a mystery.”

Sylvia meandered past them, examining the device at the back of the room. “Well, she’s not here now,” she said. She flicked the metal casing. “And the machine is.”

Still, in the bowled casing sat the golden visage of the Cosmos Treasure Box. It sat placidly in its casing, looking more like a display in a museum than the fuel for a device that could transcend time and space.

Mallory brought a hand to her chin. “That should have been impossible,” she said. “If you’re here, I can only assume that what we did created a timeline where she never had to make the machine.” She held out a hand. “But then why is it here?” Her hand lowered, and she frowned. “And why do we remember it?”

Gwen frowned. Actually, now that she mentioned it. “Come to think of it, how did we even get here? Do you guys remember?”

Mallory slowly shook her head. “Shit, I don’t.”

“I can almost remember, but it’s really blurry,” said Sylvia. They turned to look at her as she examined the floor. “It’s almost like...when I try to pin point specifics, what I remember kind of...conflicts with itself?” She turned back around, gazing to the side. “How did we get here? What do you guys think?”

Gwen narrowed her eyes. Ugh, why was this so difficult all the sudden? “We were coming to visit Narma at work, right? She said something weird was going on.”

Mallory nodded. “Yeah, so we caught a ride with Rory and Carmen—no.” She squinted, before looking back to them. She pointed to Gwen. “No, you drove us here, didn’t you?”

Gwen frowned. She could remember driving, but she could also remember...not driving? “I—yes, I think so.”

It was slowly coming back now. She remembered, she’d been trying to pull the professor from the place in the past she’d been trying to send the message to.

But. If she wasn’t there...?

Hand moving to her pocket, she pulled out her phone. She pulled up the search engine and plugged in _monster attacks Seattle._

A few results came up from a few months back: STUDENTS CLAIM GARFIELD HIGH TERRORIST ATTACK ACTUALLY SUPERNATURAL: MONSTERS IN OUR SCHOOLS? and SUPERHEROS IN SEATTLE? LOCAL NEWS5 FUNDRAISING EVENT ASAILLED BY SERPANTS SAVED BY MYSTERIOUS MISS. _These were from the first round of attacks. Where are the more recent articles?_

As the other two watched her curiously, she changed up the search, hunting down any hint of the last months’ attacks. “Nothing,” she said finally. She showed the screen to the others. “It’s like the never happened.” The only think even close was a mention of recent power outages, and only mentioned in passing. Nothing to stop traffic about.

Mallory leaned back against the counter. “So there were no monsters?”

Suddenly, her eyes widened, and she lifted her shirt.

Where there had been bands of gauze, her belly now lacked any sign of injury.

“Well, what the fuck?” She said, sounding stumped. “If that’s the case, where the heck did this thing come from?” She tapped on the machine.

Head hurting already, Gwen’s eyes suddenly caught on the display. “Hey,” she said, moving over to it. “The connection says ‘stable’ now.”

Sylvia pattered up, leaning on the console to get a look. “Hm.” After a moment of staring at it, without hesitation she clicked CTRL and then 4.

“Hey,” Gwen yelped, but Sylvia didn’t seem worried.

“See? Here.” Sylvia pointed to a line at the bottom of the “Energy Output” screen. “It says in the log TEMPORAL CONFLICT SATISFIED – CONNECTION STABLIZED. So, whatever you guys did must have made this thing stop freaking out.”

Mallory shook her head, looking baffled as she came over to look as well. “ _Just clicking shit, Jesus_. So, I guess it’s just being powered by the box now.”

Gwen shrugged her head. “I guess so.” Still trying to make sense of everything, her eyes drifted of the screen, but paused when she noticed the camera lens at the top of the console’s screen. _Well, she did say she had surveillance everywhere._ In the reflection, she could see herself and Sylvia, the whiteness of the lab wall beside the machine behind them. She whipped around to look at it, startling the other two, before turning back. “Oh my gosh. Sylvia, does this look familiar?”

It took a second for Sylvia to catch on. “Oh,” she said flatly. “Well, that does make some sense.”

Mallory stared at them. “What?”

Gwen glanced back to the wall again, before focusing back on the camera. “I’m pretty sure this was where the transmission we saw when we were kids was shot.”

Mallory stood back, watching the sisters get ready for their staring role. There were many questions to be answered, but the anticipation that hung in the air seemed to offset the fact that they had just narrowly escaped death—at least one, if not all of them.

Of course, she wasn’t going to be the one to bring that up.

Gwen fiddled with the settings, mumbling under her breath. “Coordinates...then TRAN...+PAST? That...seems right. But...how do we know the coordinates?”

Mallory raised a hand. “I have the google map coordinates for that hotel you mentioned. Turns out, there’s only one Motel called Sharon in Nevada. Any idea what time?”

“We were just checking out,” Sylvia said, “and Gwen’s father kept insisting we needed to be gone by 11:30. So about 11:20.”

Gwen gave her an odd look. “Your dad too,” she mumbled.

Sylvia shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking about it that way back then,” she said lightly.

Gwen entered that. And then a little compartment opened up. Mallory ducked around to look. “What is that?”

“A needle,” Sylvia said. She reached forward and casually pricked her finger on it.

Gwen turned. “Sylvia!”

“What? It’s obviously looking for a DNA sample.”

Whatever the screen said at that point, it must have looked right, because Gwen hit a few more keys and then stood back. She held her finger over the ENTER button, Sylvia standing at attention beside her, before she glanced over. “This...is fine, right?” The tightness of her expression was nervous, and she peered over, looking for approval. “There’s no monsters. It’s using the box directly, so no blackouts. No earthquakes. This isn’t going to hurt anyone. It’s fine. Right?”

Mallory tipped her head to the side. “Makes sense to me.”

Gwen’s brows drew down.

“You already did it,” Mallory offered.

Gwen pointed back at her. “You are right,” she nodded. “That is true.”

Sylvia sighed hard, rolling her eyes before leaning past her sister to press the button.

The Cosmos Treasure Box flared pale purple. Unlike before, the lightshow seemed to stay contained within its dome.

The screen, abruptly, changed. While she couldn’t see it directly, she could tell when the screen changed from being totally black to...something else.

_“Whoa,”_ Mallory heard after a long moment of them staring at the screen,

The sisters looked to one another, then took a breath. Sylvia began “ _Sylvia and Gwen, pay attention.”_

Gwen picked up. _“In ten years, go find the superheroes of Seattle.”_

Once they seemed to be done, they set to work figuring out how to remove the Treasure Box. After several moments of fiddling and making sure that the system was shut off, they managed to open the case and Sylvia reached in and grabbed it without concern, giving her sister yet another heart attack. As they made for the closet exit, they took one final glance back to the lab. _This definitely could have gone worse, so I guess we just have to be grateful for getting out of this in one piece._

They made their way up the stairs and, curiously, the door was locked when they got there. More curious, as the door only locked from the inside. They had checked the rooms thoroughly for any sign of the professor, though, and no dice. Mallory chalked it up to some kind of residual time thing; who the fuck knew.’

When they unlocked it, they weren’t expecting to find a group of policemen waiting on the other side though.

Officer Jerry peered back at her, and sighed when he caught a look at her. “ _Goddammit.”_

What she did next was entirely on instinct. “It’s the cops! _Scatter!”_ And then she fucking booked it for the door.

She didn’t get far. The other two behind her didn’t either: Gwen baulked and froze like a chump (she’d have to teach her not to do that) and Sylvia apparently moved to follow without question, but two of the cops in the room got ahold of her as did Mallory.

Mallory shimmed and kicked in protest. “I demand a lawyer!”

Somewhere in the room, a nasally voice spoke up. “I told you some kids had snuck in down there!”

Mallory looked over her shoulder to see a short guy in glasses pouting in his dorky little lab coat. “This is highly valuable research, officer—who knows what these kids were doing sneaking around!”

_“Nerd!”_ She barked.

The man wrinkled his nose, looking affronted.

“Alright, alright,” Officer Jerry sighed, escorting them through the doors. “I don’t know how you girls got down there, but that’s expensive NASA equipment you were messing with. And you should know better than to try and resist arrest.”

“I can’t help it, Jerry,” she grunted back. “I’m a rebel. I can’t be tamed.” She looked back at the other two, Gwen looking mildly concerned and Sylvia seeming to be happy enough to go along with it, if somewhat uncomfortable with the touching. “Don’t worry, guys,” she said. “We’ll get this sorted out no problem, don’t you worry. Soon, these guys will figure out they’ve made the classic blunder, and we’ll be free as birds.”

Jerry sighed. “I can hear you, you know.”

One moment, Narma blinked, and had no idea what was going on. She found herself standing in the hallway of the Institute with Carmen and Rory, staring at them in confusion before she realized that they were all in their Sailor uniforms and she squawked.

Cue one of her co-workers rounding the corner and shrieking, surely seeing what had to look like three holographic aliens in the hallway.

They scrambled, running for the nearest empty hall—a hall closet was the first opportunity they found, and they took it. They ducked inside.

In the dark, crammed in with about five brooms which frankly seemed like an excessive number, Rory hissed, “What just happened?!”

Narma shrugged, manic. “I don’t know! Why are we in uniform?”

Carmen said, “Were we fighting something?”

“I didn’t see anything.” Rory looked to her like she was supposed to know, which, why?

“Okay, okay, hold up. Let’s un-transform and then worry about this.”

They did so. As soon as Narma’s phone was returned from whatever extra dimensional space it had been stowed in, it lit up, blinding them in the closet.

Eying the others, she answered it. “Hello?”

The distinct sardonic droll of Mallory came over the line. “Hey, so me, Gwen, and Sylvia got arrested. Please come bail us out.”

Narma wanted to throw her hands up. “What? Girl, how did you get arrested?!

“They thought we broke into your work.”

_What? What were they doing there!_ “You were here too?”

“I’ll explain everything,” Mallory said finally. “I just need you to come explain to the police that we weren’t trespassing.”

“I...okay.” She disconnected. She looked to the others, who were staring, wide-eyed. “I guess we’re going to the police.”

Rory groaned, holding her head in her hands.

The police station was wild when the got there. Narma hadn’t been to the police station before, but Rory miserably showed them where to find it, aided by the mysterious presence of Carmen’s car. (But...she had driven them all there, right? So why didn’t she remember the other girls being with them?) Once inside, it was clear that the station was up to its neck in work, which she realized belatedly might be due to the busting of the Red Roots last night. Curtesy of them.

When she got to the front desk, all she had to say was, “Where are they?” And the guy at the front immediately knew who they were talking about. He narrowed his eyes when he saw Rory.

“I hope this isn’t going to become a habit,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

Stiffly, she crossed her arms. “I haven’t been here before the other day, have I?”

The man, whose badge read Jerry Cross, sighed, standing. “This way.”

He led them back to a room with a window that had to be the interview room. He had them write down their contact information before they went inside. “Because you guys are minors, we have to contact your parents.”

Narma’s mouth fell open. “Even though we didn’t do anything?”

“You’re here in reference to an arrest,” he said tiredly. “We have to contact your parents or guardians regardless. Station policy.”

Narma grumbled, but stood aside as an even more disgruntled Rory filled in her info. Man. She really didn’t need her parents running down here and freaking out. They were already on rocky terms—they were still (still!) mad about the Manuel thing and she was mad right back. Dammit, Mallory. Guess it was better to get this over with.

Still, if they were under arrest, why were they all jammed into the interview room? This seemed weird, based on all the cop shows she had seen in the past. As looked around, and nearby she saw a hallway branching off from the main area with a man standing guard, Turning back to Jerry, she tossed a thumb to him. “You have guards in a police station?”

Jerry grumbled. “We brought in a highly dangerous criminal recently,” he grumbled under his breath. “We’re not going to leave that guy without an eye on him.”

Hm. She wondered if they had anything to do with the bust, then. Maybe one of the Root’s head honchos?

Just one more factor in this weird scenario, I guess.

Narma spent the next ten minutes trying her damnedest to get them out of there without any paperwork. Mallory was going to owe her for this, for sure, even though really all she did was react in a totally reasonable manner to being approached by police.

Rory and Carmen were allowed to wait on the benches outside. Narma hadn’t mentioned their involvement, despite them all showing up together. They seemed fine with not being interrogated. 

“I’m telling you,” Narma said, sitting at the table with her head in her hands. “I. Invited. Them! They didn’t sneak into the building. I needed them to try on the dresses I had made for them, and some of our other friends tagged along. They wandered off, but that’s not a crime!”

Mallory said, “Yeah, man; we didn’t even mean to lock the door. My hand must have missed the latched when we went down there.”

Still, the bad part about the boys in blue hauling them down here was something else altogether; she knew they weren’t getting charged. The complicating factor was that they had requested Gwen and Sylvia’s contact info.

Which very likely was going to come back fake.

Which could make things very complicated, so she had to try and distract these guys into letting them loose before they came up with anything fishy.

Her gaze drifted over to Sylvia and Gwen, who were sitting awkwardly at their places in the table. They clearly didn’t know how to navigate this situation. That was okay; she had plenty of experience.

One of Jerry’s buddies narrowed his eyes. “Then why didn’t anyone see you girls go down there?”

She leaned forward. “They were _absorbed with science_ , obviously.”

Jerry huffed, twitching his mustache. He eyed her wearily. “If you didn’t do anything, why did you run?”

She shrugged. “Force of habit.”

He groaned, dragging a hand down his face.

Mallory lifted her head as a commotion sounded from outside. She sat up, trying to peer over the heads of the cops interviewing them.

“Ah-ah—don’t worry about what’s going on out there. You pay attention to me.”

But Mallory caught sight anyways of a short, colorfully dressed woman pushing her way to the back of the pen where they were located. Her tawny brown skin was tight with age, streaks of silver in the dark hair she pulled back into a bun. When she glanced in their direction, her face screwed up and she marched for the interview room, knocking firmly on the door.

Sidecop B stood, holding an open palm at the window. “Ma’am, you can’t do that; we’re conducting an investigation.”

The woman pursed her lips like she’d eaten something sour. “You better let me speak to my daughter right now, or I will kick a fuss you can’t believe.” She knocked again, once, twice, three times, four times...

_“Krishna,”_ Narma groaned, dragging her hands down her face.

Seemed Narma’s mom had been the first one to make it there.

Jerry looked ready to quit. “Ugh. I guess we can take a break. 15 minutes, Ms. Anand.”

Narma stood and headed out the interview room door. The sound of escalated volume rattled from outside the room. Yikes. Probably wasn’t happy about her staying at the police station, even if she didn’t know the circumstances. The two walked off towards one of the nearby hallways to ‘talk.” Mallory didn’t envy her just then.

A new cop took that moment to lean in the door. She gave a gesture at the two inside, and they looked at each other.

Maybe now was her only chance, while everyone was distracted. She brought her fist down on the table. “Okay, listen. The snooping down in the basement—that was my bad. These two had nothing to do with it.”

“Nope.” Jerry and his buddy were already on their way out. “We’re taking a break too.”

Mallory narrowed her eyes. “Hey, I have a case to make here!”

“You’ll have to wait 15 minutes.” They shut the door behind them.

The room was quiet, she and the two sisters left alone. Sylvia. Gwen.

She drummed her fingers on the table, before turning to look at them. “So,” she said, somewhat sheepish, “what’s going to happen if your parents show up here?”

Gwen took a breath, leaning back against the wall. “Hard to say,” she said slowly. “They’ll probably be mad. I suppose we did what we came here to do, but. They’ll probably drag us back to Phoenix.”

Phoenix. The thought left her ill. There were about fifty things they still needed to talk about, and it felt strange to think what had seemed like a world-changing series of events were about to be over, possibilities extinguished merely based on a factor such as distance.

Holy crap, she must have really been drinking the hormonal Kool-aid; her thoughts sounded like some kind of hipster at an open mic riffing on about his Tortured Soul. Ugh.

...maybe that was okay, right then. Even professionals could appreciate a quiet moment, when the time came.

She squinted an eye at them. Sylvia made some highly measured sweeps over the metal table with her hands. “...you think you guys will come by some time?”

Gwen responded immediately. “Yeah,” she said. “Of course. When we get some time.”

“They’ll probably have us on house arrest,” Sylvia added flatly, and they went quiet.

Suddenly a racket rattled through the building. The noise made them jump, sending them under the table as far as they were able. There were shouts, and finally Mallory rose back about the table top. “What the hell was that?”

Still, her heart practically sunk through the floor _. Please don’t be what I think that just was._

Man, this was so uncomfortable.

If Rory had any say, she wouldn’t have ever stepped foot in here again. Unfortunately, it seemed shenanigans were a universal constant, and so here she was, sitting with Carmen on the visitor’s bench full of confusion and not able to talk about it.

Ugh.

She looked up when she felt a nudge on her arm. Carmen peered back at her. “You okay?”

Rory blew out a breath. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just wish I wasn’t here right now.”

Carmen nodded solemnly, her eyes wide. “It’s a gross atmosphere.” She took a deep breath. “At least it’s not for something serious, though. With as much as we know about Mallory, she’ll probably figure out a way to weasel out of this.” She raised a brow.

Rory snorted. “Yeah, probably.” Stretching, she sat up. It was humid in the office, clear that the station’s AC wasn’t totally working in the summer heat. She didn’t especially like all the glances over from the folks in the pens either, but she guessed she would just have to deal for now. Also, she couldn’t help but be relieved she wasn’t here about herself this time.

She peered back to the room nearby, where two cops had emerged moments before and were now muttering over a computer screen. Mallory, Gwen, and Sylvia were all still jammed inside the small room—who knew what was going on in there. Mallory had said she had some stuff to tell them, but they hadn’t exactly had the chance to talk yet.

Not to mention the drama with Narma. Rory could only wince when she’d come through like a tiny hurricane moments before, only to emerge with Narma in a yelling match. They disappeared down the hall to the restrooms where they could have some privacy, but still. She wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of that. Just one thing after another, jeez.

Rory frowned, eyeing the huddled cops. “They’ve been at this a long time. Wonder what’s taking so long?”

It happened quickly.

One moment, they were sitting there, and she turned towards the back, and then a familiar _tak-a-tak-a_ filled the air. Rory yelped, heart leaping at the noise, and dragged Carmen and herself to the floor. The cops in the pens let out alarmed noises as the sounds of breaking glass filled the room.

“Jesus Christ!” Someone cried. “Officer down, officer down!”

Rory’s eyes swiveled on the scene like pool balls, trying to comprehend what had just happened. The front window was busted out. People were scrambling. Guns were drawn, and folks were trying to get a look outside. Did—did they just get shot up?!

“They sprayed the back offices too,” another cop said roughly though a walkie, her voice distorted. “We need ambulances right away.”

“Where did they come from?! Did anyone get a look at them?” Another officer yelled through the building.

Beside her, she felt Carmen trying to stand up. “No,” she hissed. “Stay down! They might not be done.”

Suddenly, a much louder boom racketed through the building, and Rory gasped, covering her head.

“It’s the cells! Stop them!”

Her eyes widened, and she finally understood.

The Roots.

Narma’s mother marched her back through the building as she tried to explain that this was in no way her freaking fault. “It was just a misunderstanding!” She barked, tugging her arm out of her mother’s grip.

Her mother turned, and her eyes were watery. Despite the distressing picture, Narma couldn’t bring herself to feel anyway but angry. “I don’t even know what to think anymore!” her mother shouted. “Going out with reckless people, lying to us, and you don’t talk to us! You never talk anymore!”

Narma bit back, “ _Because you never listen_. Mother, sometimes I want to live my life! People make mistakes, and you act like it means I don’t have any sense at all! I’m working hard!”

She threw her hands up. “Because I’m here, you assume I did something, when really this has nothing to do with me! It’s like you don’t trust me anymore! I don’t know what to say to make you understand!”

Her mother’s lip wobbled, and she looked away. “It’s like you hate us,” she said stiffly. “Why don’t you love your parents?”

Narma’s jaw dropped, her shoulders slumping. A groan of frustration heaved out of her. There was no winning with them! it felt hopeless to even argue. They just weren’t going to understand. “I do love you! But that doesn’t mean I have to agree with you all the time, or that I’m going to be exactly what you want me to be! You have to let me make mistakes.

Her mother’s cold pout faltered, and she could see something like pain in her expression. “We just worry about you. And we miss you! We don’t want to lose our little girl!”

She didn’t have to say it like that, like she was just trying to make her feel bad. Narma clench her hands, eyes burning. “And I’m trying to tell you you won’t.”

An explosive noise clattered through the hall, and Narma yelped as broken glass sprayed out from the wall’s window like water. The light fixture busted above them, casting the hall in darkness. Her good ear was ringing; her bad ear throbbed with memory. Wincing, she uncovered her eyes. “The heck was that—Mom?”

It took her a second to see it in the dark as her mother fell. There was a darkness at her shoulder, getting bigger. Horror filled her, and she scrambled over to kneel beside her. “Mom? Mom, are you okay?”

“I—” Her mother’s voice sounded in the hall, sounding shaken. “—did someone throw something?”

“Mom?” Panic bubbled up at her mother’s apparent confusion. Had that been gunfire? Why? _Where had it come from?_ She inhaled shakily, screaming, “HELP! We need help!”

She looked back to her mother, who said, “What are you yelling for? Who turned the lights off?”

Was she shot? Narma reached out to feel the edge of her sari—her fingers came back wet. Fumbling, she reached for the bag on her hip, she moved to call 911—shit, she was _at the police station_. “HELP!” She yelled again. Where was everybody? She pulled out her phone anyways, and dialed the number. Surprisingly, a harried voice picked up. “Ah—hello, 911, what’s your emergency?” There were loud voices in the background. Did they get hit too?

“I’m here at the police station,” she said desperately, “my mom’s been shot.”

The woman inhaled. “Okay. okay.” She sounded frantic. “Where are you?”

“In the back hall? With the offices?”

The woman sighed roughly, “Okay, we know, we know. There’s an ambulance on it’s way right now. It should just be a few minutes. Put pressure on the wound. Okay? Just hang in there.”

“Okay,” Narma said. “Okay.”

Her mother had stopped talking, and she was scared to leave her—what if she couldn’t find her way back? What if...? “It’s going to be okay,” she said. “Someone’s coming.” She could hear sirens, actually, maybe? But they sounded so far away! She whimpered, pressing the canvas of her bag against the dark spot on her mother’s dress. “Mom, can you hear me?”

No response. Something crawled up her throat, squeezing tightly. How did this happen? “It’s going to be okay.”

She held her mother’s hand as she clutched her bag to the wound, blood soaking through, She was scared to move. “Look,” she whispered, vision blurry. “I wasn’t trying to make you upset, alright? I just...I just needed to do something. Needed to be someone. I’m sorry it’s not who you wanted. I know I made a mistake.” She sniffed. It felt like the moment in the dark was dragging on forever. What if...what if they didn’t get here in time? No, they had to. “I’m sorry. But you’ve got to be okay, alright? You’ve got to.”

In her bag, her fingers brushed up against the Egeria scepter. They must have, because she felt the familiar holographic aura envelope her. She didn’t know if her mother could see it or not—it didn’t matter.

Her vision was lost to tears. She held her mother’s hand, and in that moment, she heard something. Not the sirens, not the voices from somewhere.

She didn’t even consciously decide to voice the words at they came to her. One minute, she was crying, and the next minute a frail blue light shown from above and what felt like a delicate falling of rain pattered around her.

It felt familiar.

In the fading light, she saw her mother open her eyes.


	17. Chapter 17

**Episode 17: Salvage Yard; Or, What Ever Happened to the Ghost in the Machine?**

She remembered—remembered where she had felt that light before.

It had been in blips and flashes, but she had seen it lying on the floor of the arcade, battling for consciousness. She had been electrocuted—to what she was sure now had been nearly to death—but that light had brought her back. And as she lifted the blood-soaked canvas bag, she checked the wound with a pounding heart and only found a small divot. She...she did that?

_Wellspring Revival_ ; an attack she didn’t even know she had. She had that kind of power? It must have had a pretty big trade-off. She almost felt like she was going to sink into the floor, her knees were so wobbly.

It was then that she realized she was here. In uniform. In front of her mother.

So she got up, ran around the corner, and ran back. She felt stupid doing it, but the way that her mother’s confused gaze resolved once her eyes found her reassured her. “There you are,” her mother said. “What’s happening? It went dark, and then I saw—my shoulder, dear, I think I’ve injured it.”

Narma took a breath. Coherent; much better. For a minute there, she had thought...she didn’t want to think about it anymore. “Some lunatics tried to shoot up the station,” she kneeled down, her mother hissing as she lifted her arm over her shoulder. “I just went to get help, and they say an ambulance is on the way. Are you okay?”

“Y...yes,” her mother said slowly. “I must have blacked out for a moment; it was all flashes.”

She took a breath. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you checked out. I think something did hit you—you’re bleeding.”

Her mother inhaled sharply. She scoffed, then grunted painfully as Narma lifted her to stand. “You can’t even go outside anymore, and there’s crazy people! This city.”

Narma sighed, pounding heart finally starting to calm. “I know, mom. I know.”

The cops were scrambling trying to clear up whatever had just happened. Sylvia, Mallory, and herself were forced to sit and wait while things were cleaned up without any information.

Eventually, though, the cops came back. The guy sighed hard and leaned against the doorway. Outside, Gwen could see paramedics coming in and out.

“...we’re not going to worry about the, ugh, the ‘break-in.’” He sighed. “You have a witness with authorization to that building corroborating your story, and as far as we can tell, you didn’t do any damage to the equipment in the labs.”

“Yeah,” Mallory interjected. “We basically just hung out in the basement.”

The guy’s eyes said _‘watch it.’ “But_ ,” he said sharply, and Gwen’s stomach sunk as he turned to them, “There is something else that I need to talk to you girls about.” He brought up a printout that had been clutched in his fist until that moment, showing them. They were finished—it was the missing article that had been up in the local news once they left. “We came across this in our reports. Care to explain?”

She made it as simple as she could. She said they had ran away to see what it was like living on their own, and that they fully intended to return to their parents. She said that they had lied about their ages in order to get somewhere to stay, but she kept the owner of the flower shop out of it. No reason to get anyone else in trouble. She told him they were feeling confined, and wanted to have an adventure for their summer vacation.

It was banal, and it wasn’t a very good lie besides, but by the end the cop just sighed heavily. “I’m guessing the number that you gave us before was a fake, then.”

“Yeah,” she admitted. No reason to make up another lie to cover up something inconsequential.

The officer leaned on his knees. “You’ve caused your parents a lot of grief, you know? They’ve been worried sick.”

“I know.” She swallowed, not regretting having come here, but knowing it was going to be hell once her parents got there. Mallory watched her from the side, Sylvia seemingly trying her best to disassociate from the tense situation.

The guy stood up. “We called them a few minutes ago. Apparently, they were already in the city, so they’re going to be here in about twenty minutes.”

Gwen’s brows furrowed. _They’re here in Seattle? What are they doing here?_ She couldn’t imagine what business they might have had in the city to bring them all the way from Phoenix, unless they had somehow figured them out.

Now, though, all they could do was wait.

Seeing as they had nowhere to go, they let them come out of the interview room to join their team mates outside. Mallory moved to sit with Rory and Carmen, Gwen lingering behind as Sylvia paced about with agitation. “Hey,” Mallory said, leaning towards the others. “Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah,” Carmen sighed, and Rory nodded slowly. Gwen lowered herself to the bench—she knew that, on some level, she was still a sort of outsider to the group, and she didn’t want to step on these guy’s toes while they were having a moment.

Mallory wrinkled her brow. “What happened?”

Rory dragged her hands over her face. “Apparently,” she said, sounding exasperated, “these guys busted some big gang meet-up last night, and some of their folks showed up trying to break out their leader. They still have most of the guys, but the leader got away.”

Gwen whistled. “Damn. This city just never stops, does it?”

Rory groaned.

They were more than a little surprised when Narma walked out of the back hallway with her mother in tow—more so because the woman’s sari was coated in blood.

“Holy shit,” Mallory said, standing. “What happened?”

Narma looked exhausted. She indicated her mother’s place under her arm. “She got grazed when those creeps mowed down the building. _Oof,_ right over here.”

They watched, gaping as she led her mother over to one of the paramedics, who jumped up to help her as soon as they saw the state of her. _A graze? That’s s lot of blood for a graze!_ Still, Narma didn’t appear worried, so she didn’t know what to think. They sat back down, stunned, and waited. Narma didn’t offer anything more as they waited for the adults to show.

Narma leaned over, though, hissing under her breath. “So what the heck happened in the basement?”

Mallory said, “Giant time machine fueled by the Treasure Box. It had summoned a lot of monsters into the city that killed some people. We managed to stop that from happening, and it re-wrote time. Do you remember any of that?”

Narma’s eyes bulged from her skull. “Whoa, what? No! When was this?!”

Mallory sat back, waving a hand. “So no, then. It doesn’t matter—it never happened here. Hm. Wonder why we remember, and you guys don’t? Maybe because of how close we were to the machine...”

Narma rubbed her chin. “So _that’s_ why they attacked Celene and stole the box?”

Gwen’s jaw dropped. “That still happened?”

Rory sat back up, staring back at them wearily. “Yeah? That’s so weird. No, but the nurse says it’s going to be a couple more days before Celene is ready to come home.”

Gwen blew out a breath. That raised so many more questions than it answered. “Man.”

Rory furrowed her brow. “Wait, then what happened to the person who did it?”

Mallory shrugged, just a little bump of her shoulders. “We don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Gwen?”

Her eyebrows shot up as the familiar voice called across the room. Gwen turned, and she froze to see who was standing in the doorway: her mom, her dad not far behind, peering around with a measure of horror at the shattered front windows. But the greater part of their attention was on her.

Gwen stood up, already calculating how to even start doing damage control. “Mom?”

They stormed over, her mother grabbing her up in a hug. She pulled away after a few seconds, looking around frantically. “Where is your sister?”

As her dad planted an open palm on Gwen’s shoulder, her mom caught sight of Sylvia, standing stiffly a few feet behind her. She descended upon her, pulling her in whilst their new friends watched on in states of awkwardness and confusion. “Emily. Oh, thank God. Where have you girls been? We’ve been worried sick! We thought you were dead, or—”

Their dad spoke up, taking a step back to get a look at them both. “What _happened?”_

“Sorry, Glen.” Gwen took a step back as Sylvia hugged their dad around the shoulders, voice flat. “I remembered that thing that happened at the hotel when we were kids—”

Gwen looked at her with wide eyes. What was she doing? This wasn’t what they had discussed. They were supposed to take on the blame equally, but Sylvia was phrasing it as though it had been her idea.

Their mother let out an exasperated sigh, seeming to see where this way going already. “Seriously? God, I nearly forget about that old story.”

Sylvia shrugged, continuing. “And we wanted to see what was happening in the city. It was a big coincidence.”

Gwen took that as her cue to jump in. Like hell she was going to let her sister take the full brunt of their parent’s ire. “Yeah, but we knew you wouldn’t let us come out here.”

Sylvia eyed her, but nodded. Seemed she was going to go with it. “We got kind of caught up, started thinking about the whole thing like a summer adventure...but it turned out to be a bust.”

Gwen put on her best guilty smile, turning out to both of them. “We knew you were going to be mad when we came back. Sorry.”

Even as she tried her best to come up with a story her parents wouldn’t be too mad at, she knew it wasn’t enough. She had been avoiding thinking about it for so long, but now that she was face to face with their utterly exhausted expressions, she understood the gravity of their absence. While they’d been meandering about Seattle, their parents had been kept up at night, wondering where they were. What might have happened to them. _Wow._ Her stomach sunk. _It’s going to take a while to make up for this, isn’t it?_

And still.

She glanced back to Mallory; the other girls. Despite everything, she was still going to have to leave them behind.

Her mom’s frown crumpled, and she brought her into another quick hug. “I’m just happy that you’re safe,” she said. Then she narrowed her eyes. “But you’re grounded forever.”

One arm around Sylvia, who seemed to be tolerating it as well as she could, their father dragged a palm down his face. He groaned, “Ugh, if you girls could have just waited a few more days...”

Gwen’s brows furrowed. “Wait, why?”

Their mother eyed her and Sylvia, expression wry, “We’d forgotten all about the motel story, but we were going to tell you—your father got a job transfer. We needed to move.”

Gwen blinked, glancing over to Sylvia, who stared back, equality wide-eyed. Where did this come from? “Wait, since when?”

Her mother’s frown deepened. “He’s been working in Seattle for two months now.”

Once the initial shock had worn off, their parents took a few extra moments to sort things out with the police, so she had another chance to talk to the girls.

Mallory approached her immediately, having heard the whole thing. “So. You guys are going to get to stay?”

Gwen snorted, shoving her hands in her pockets. She shook her head, disbelieving she’d managed to come out of this so cleanly. “Seems like it.”

Mallory side-eyed her from behind her glasses. Maybe it was something in the way she held her folded arms to her chest, but there was something almost sheepish in her stance. That was a little silly. If anything was going to scare her off, she had to have known it would have come long before this. She said, “That’s a pretty big coincidence.”

It really couldn’t have worked out better, which was a bit scary. “Maybe I had one more big luck draw than I had accounted for. I just didn’t know it yet.” She turned to look at her more directly. “They say we’re going to start at Garfield in a few weeks.”

Mallory brought her nails up to examine, which was totally casual and not at all something she had obviously seen in a movie or something. “Well, it’ll be nice to keep you around for a little longer. You know. continue your training.” She glanced back, and something in her eyes told her enough. _I’m glad you get to stay._

Gwen nodded pensively. “Can’t let ourselves slack off.” _Me too._

“Oh, just make out already.”

“Sylvia!” Face burning, she turned back to where her sister’s monotone comment had originated.

Sylvia shrugged, totally unapologetic. One of the other girls laughed, but she didn’t catch who.

When she turned back, Mallory was clearing her throat, looking sincerely less cool. She couldn’t quite hide the hint of a smile against her fist. “Seems like you might be locked in for a while, though,” she murmured, indicating back to her parents.

But Sylvia waved a hand nearby. “Eh, give me a day. I should be able to talk them around.”

The following evening came, and Narma leaned back against the back of the storefront she had last visited on her date with Manuel. After seeing the way that her keeping secrets had nearly cost her mother’s life, she had been thinking a lot. As much as she hated it, she knew that secret, the one from her parents, was one that she still had to keep: if she told them she had been putting herself in danger to defend the city, she was positive that they would never let her out of the house again. Guiltily, she couldn’t blame them. If she had a daughter who was doing the same, she would probably react in the same way. Shit, sometimes she couldn’t believe she was doing the kind of shit she was doing.

Even so, it had got her to thinking: if she could minimize some of the lies she had to tell, wouldn’t that be for the better? She certainly had reasons for keeping things the way they were, but they weren’t the only reasons she had. Weren’t there just as many good reasons for doing the opposite? So she had made a decision.

She watched the folks meander about the pier, curling into her faux leather jacket. She couldn’t help but feel as though the extra cover might have subconsciously been one last plea for herself to reconsider. She had never been more in conflict about something than she was right then.

But then she saw the mess of Manuel’s curls appear in the masses, and he turned his eyes on her, and it was too late.

His eyes were guarded, deep and unsure as he spotted her, and he maneuvered through the crowd with purpose. His height, something that had only made her feel safe before, now made her feel young and foolish by comparison. She didn’t uncurl as he reached her. “Narma. I would almost think you didn’t want me to find you.”

She glanced away. “...thank you. For coming.”

He frowned. “I’m hoping there was a good reason you asked me to meet you all the way out here.” He paused, glancing around to the places where small signs indicated some still on-going construction. “...other than for nostalgia’s sake.”

“There is,” she said quickly, watching his eyebrows rise at her rapid response. “I mean.” She swallowed.

He watched her. He didn’t say anything. She took a breath. _Guess I’m not getting out of this easily_. Finally, she asked, “Are you still interested in being with me? If...the things that were discussed before. If they weren’t a problem.”

He shifted. “...I suppose that depends. Honestly, Narma, it’s been ruminating for a while.”

“Because I still like you,” she cut in suddenly. “I know we didn’t go out that many times—not on just dates, I mean. But I really want to get to know you.” She bit her lip. “I feel like I’m going to regret it if I don’t.”

Manuel frowned at her. Her heart felt like lead, sure she had made a fool of herself. Then his frown slipped, his eyes softening. “I like you too. I didn’t want to shut you out like that, it’s just...it felt like a red flag, having lies between us so early.”

Narma could practically feel her face darken. “....come with me for a second,” she said, heading into the alleyway.

She stopped a little ways in, until she was sure she wouldn’t be overheard by any passersby.

Manuel followed cautiously behind, eyeing her. “...Narma, what is this?”

She pursed her lips, and then looked up to him, grabbing his hands. He gave a surprised little noise, but she didn’t waiver. “...do you promise, what I’m about to say never leaves this alley?”

In the darkness, his eyes sparked with a sudden curiosity. “Okay,” he said.

A shaky breath escaped her. “Then there’s something...I need to tell you.”

Mallory folded her hands on the table, the voices of café-going patrons filling the air around them. She was here with a sense of resignation, and even though she had suggested it in the first place, it felt surreal, like she had just stepped into a role in a movie or something and nobody gave her the script. “So,” she said. “How do we do this?”

Gwen grinned at her from across the table. Mallory reddened under the critique of her raised brow. “You’re asking me? You’re the one who asked me out in the first place!”

Mallory coughed under her breath. “That. That is true. I just...with all of my professional endeavors, I haven’t exactly had many chances to do this kind of thing.”

Gwen nodded, her eyes narrowed, and Mallory didn’t even have to deduce she was teasing her. “Oh, of course, of course.” She leaned back. “So you’re assuming I have?”

Mallory scoffed. “Uh, yes, obviously.” No way that someone who looked like Gwen hadn’t dated like, a hundred people. That was...a lot, right? Not that she thought she was, like, easy or anything! Ugh, if she could refrain from voicing any of this, please, that would be great.

Gwen smirked. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

_Change the subject, change the subject._ Interests, right? “So. When did you first start learning to kick everyone’s ass at everything?”

Gwen laughed.

Mallory, not necessarily having meant it as a joke, smiled uneasily. She cleared her throat, continuing, confidence somewhat improved. “I mean, what—archery, fencing, crime scene investigation—there’s got to be a limit at some point, come on. Leave some skills for the rest of us.”

Mallory felt in her heart that this was the beginning of...something, at least.

Carmen stepped into her father’s office, clenching her hands in front of her. Taking a deep breath, she stepped forward. “Dad? Can I...speak to you for a moment?”

He was hunched over his desk, surrounded by papers. Half of them, she knew, were thank you letters to the guests who had attended the last event, which had gone well until a black-out had left their guests in the dark, and early. While that was something she couldn’t have possibly predicted, she couldn’t help but think that he held her somewhat accountable. He didn’t look up as he replied, “Of course, dearest,” a sigh in his voice. “Come in.”

As quietly as possible, she closed the door behind her. She stayed just inside the entrance, instinct asking her to leave a quick exit open to herself.

The end of summer was fast approaching, and Carmen couldn’t help but feel as though the season had been a sort of transitionary state. They gained new allies; defeated a new threat, although they had seemingly done so in a different reality. More than anything, her brief conversations with Sylvia had prompted her to question herself more frankly than she had ever done. She knew there were things she needed to address, and most of them with the man on the other side of the desk.

With summer drawing to a close, she had a lingering anxiety that if she didn’t address them now, she was just going to let the opportunity slip by her, _yet again._

She took a breath, folding her hands in front of herself. Where did she even start here? “I wanted to talk about...my future.”

Her father looked up. Slowly, he lowered his pen. “Yes? What is it?”

_Now or never._ “I know you’ve been sort of thinking I was going to take over the company. I...just don’t think the company is right for me.”

He frowned, narrowing his eyes. “What brought this on?”

“I...I’m just not passionate about the company the way that you are. I know there are tons of folks in the company who would love to have the position...I know those boys are always talking about it.” She tried not to let the bitterness show in her voice—even though she wasn’t interested in them, there was still some hurt in knowing someone was getting to know you merely for the advantages you might bring—but that wasn’t important right now. Right now, she just never wanted to agonize over this again.

A look of understanding dawned over his face. “ _’Those boys,’_ she says. Is that what this is about? You’re not getting on well with the young men that have been coming to our events?”

“They’re fine,” she said stiffly. “I’m just...not interested in them. But that’s not why I’m saying this!”

But her father was nodding. “No, no, I understand.”

She lowered her hand where she’d unconsciously brought it up, wondering what he was going to say.

“Those young men are quite single-minded. All they think about is their influence.” She narrowed her eyes as he waved a hand. “They haven’t had time to learn. I ask you to be patient with them—they will learn, And, if not, there will be other young men moving in the company’s periphery. It’s no reason to give up on the company entirely. There will be other opportunities.”

Carmen inhaled sharply, her hackles rising. Ugh, this was exactly what she had worried about. “That’s not it! And it’s not them—” her heart pounded, and dread forced her eyes away from her father’s face, scared to see his reaction. “—honestly, I don’t want to date anyone at all!” She had to make him understand. “The company is simply not something I’m interested in. I’m sorry, I know you thought I would be, but it’s not something I want.”

Slowly, forcing her gaze back to his desk, she saw him tapping his pen on the table. His expression was unreadable, and she chewed her lip as she waited for his response.

Then, unexpectedly, he smiled. He let out a small exhalation of a laugh, just a soft _heh,_ before shaking his head.

“Ah,” he said, “to be young. I know this is a very confusing time in your life, and there are many things you don’t yet understand. You’ll be fine.” Unsure, she watched as he picked back up the document he’d been working on, beginning to write. “Give it time. You’ll understand what’s important when you’re older.”

There was a nauseating moment where she wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but once she realized he had returned his attention solely on his work, a cold feeling swept through her.

He...wasn’t even considering it. He was just...brushing her off.

Carmen swallowed. She pursed her lips. “Thank you,” she said shortly, before turning and leaving the room.

She closed the door, her hand trembling on the knob.

She inhaled, exhaled. Then, she left the office behind.

Fine. He wasn’t going to take her seriously.

Then she would just have to do it herself.

Sylvia blew a kazoo as instructed as Rory entered the park area with Celene in her arms. Everybody cheered, and she could see Celene sit up slightly as she took in all of her charges staring back at her from the table. The cat blinked at them. “What—what’s this?”

There was a little banner hanging from a tree above the table that read _Welcome Back, Celene!_ Luckily, it seemed to be an innocuous enough statement that no one had noticed yet that they were all talking to a cat. At least the other humans in the park didn’t seem to hear her. How did that work? Was it some sort of telepathy, or were their brains just doing extra work to interpret her meows, or what? Weird.

Narma winced. “We figured we owed you an apology,” she said. “For not watching the box more carefully, and for—”

Sylvia blinked curiously as she saw her flick her gaze conspicuously up to Rory. Hm. She wondered what that was about.

Narma coughed. “—other things. So, we decided to throw you a little welcome-back party.”

_“Sorry,”_ the girls chimed simultaneously. _“Celene was right, and we were wrong.”_

“Oh!” The cat blinked big orange eyes at them looking around. Still weird that she could talk, but not the weirdest thing that had happened. “Well,” she said, sounding a bit taken aback, “you needn’t have done all this, but I do appreciate the gesture. This is very sweet, thank you.”

Rory maneuvered around to their side, setting Celene delicately on the table and gesturing to the confections there. “We even got you a little cake,” Rory chirped excitedly. “We didn’t know if you could eat actual sweets, so we made you a little kitty cake too.”

“Oh.” Sylvia could practically see the anime sweat drop on her face. “Thanks. That’s very...thoughtful!”

They sat around chatting, atmosphere host to some surprisingly good vibes considering they were subject to a shooting merely two days before, and had nearly been destroyed by monsters daily for months before that. She was fine with going for it, though she couldn’t exactly understand how they could so easily move on. All her thoughts were circulating around what might have happened if things had gone differently (and they had.) There was a world somewhere where she had disappeared, where she had never gotten to the point of being here at all.

But she peered to the spots beside her, and Gwen glanced to her every few minutes, and she knew she was checking to see if she was there. Mallory and the other girls were further down the way and they seemed satisfied with the way things had worked out as well. Maybe it was better to just let it be, then—just be grateful that she had been the Sylvia that ended up in this universe, and not in that one.

She pulled the Treasure Box from her bag; she was returning it to Rory after the girl realized she still had it. She turned to Celene, who was amusedly taking bites of the real and the cat cake alternatingly. She tapped a finger on the golden surface. “So what are we going to do with this thing, now that we know that stealing it is a thing that some people do, in fact, want to do?”

Celene sat back, tilting her head at the artifact consideringly. “I think it would be smart to hide the Cosmos Treasure Box somewhere less conspicuous. Obviously, whatever’s inside could be of great importance to host such power; merely stowing it somewhere in one of your homes might not be the best choice.”

Sylvia hmmed, examining the box’s decoration as the others eyed it. “Are we ever going to be able to check what’s inside it?”

Celene said, finally, “Perhaps it’s better we _don’t.”_

It was silent, the proclamation ruminating like a wet blanket on the fun time they were having.

...eventually, Mallory shrugged. “We could rent out a bunker.”

Carmen turned to look at her sharply. “We are _not_ renting out a bunker.”

Rory leaned forward, pointing back at them. “We could rent a _safety deposit box_!”

Sylvia sighed as the others got lost in a competition to come up with the most complicated hiding place, watching the last of summer’s monarchs bustling about before they headed south to California. As much as she was glad for this all to be over, there was just as much that felt unresolved, and she knew she would be thinking about it for a long time.

Her gaze drifted upward, and she paused as her sight caught on a figure at the end of the park’s side street.

It was really far off—they must have been crossing the crosswalk or something, because they were stopped in the middle of the road, gazing back in their direction. She couldn’t see many details at that distance. Even so, she thought she saw light brown hair, and sunset caught on a long, white coat.

After a long moment, Sylvia turned her gaze from the road, turning back to the others where their conversation was still ongoing. She lowered her hand from the box, and she didn’t say anything.

It was only a day or so later that Rory ran into Eddie.

She was coming home from work, and she noticed him sitting on a bench in the park. Honestly, he looked a little funny sitting there—this little dorky guy, poised pensively staring at the horizon like he was a hundred years old. She slowed on the path as she neared him. “Hey!”

He blinked, looking up as though he had just noticed her. His eyes widened. “Rory! Hey.” His hands were stuffed in his pockets, but that could have been for warmth, as the autumn chill was just starting to work into the city in preparation for the months to come.

She frowned at him, tilting her head as he didn’t immediately launch into some spiel. Eddie was a talkative guy. Plopping down on the bench beside him, she leaned over on her knees. “You okay? That expression.” She shuddered, grinning a little bit. “So serious.”

He shook his head, reaching up to rub his eye beneath his glasses. “Oh, yeah. I’m fine. It’s just...it’s hard to believe summer’s nearly over, you know?”

She blew out a breath, leaning back. “Boy, I know it.”

His eyes rose again to the sky, and she could see the reds and peaches of sunset reflected in his glasses. “D’you hear? The police did a big roundup of all of those big mob guys in the city. But then they just shot up the police station.”

_Oh, Eddie._ She laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, I know. I was there.”

His eyes widened. “Oh my god, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She nodded after a minute. “...they kept most of the guys, but the big boss got away.” She _was_ there, right? So no harm in telling him what had happened.

His frown deepened. The expression made her a little sad—Eddie was too young to be having a face look that old. “You think they’re gonna come back?”

“I hope not,” she sighed. They were quiet for several moments,

Eddie leaned back hard on the bench. He frowned at her, and she couldn’t help but hope it wasn’t pity. Or even worry. She was starting to realize what she wanted more than anything was for less people to have to worry all the time, one way or another. He said, “Hey, maybe with those guys gone, that vigilante will be able to retire. Leave the crime fighting to the professionals.”

She closed her eyes, letting the last of the summer sun soak into her through the cut of the wind. “Yeah, maybe.” _Now, if you could tell me where the professionals were, I just might be okay._

Honestly, she didn’t know what she was going to do. She was hoping to gracefully bow out of the vigilante business if possible, but it all depended on whether the Roots decided to make a comeback or not. Worse case scenario, at least she knew she wasn’t alone. Celene was on the way up and Narma knew. And it seemed no matter what they did they were still going to be in danger—they were in a police station and they got shot at.

You could only be so safe if you wanted things to change.

“You look stressed,” Eddie said after a long minute. She peeked an eye open, and he tossed a thumb back over his shoulder, where an ice cream stand stood on the edge of the park. “What do you say: one last bomb pop before summer’s over?”

She eyed him for a moment, then she said, “You know what? That sounds pretty good.”

In a week or so, they would be juniors.

Until then, and after even, she was going to take the good where she could get it. Happy wasn’t going to happen by itself.

On an internet forum, a post goes up.

**Message for Sailor Soldiers *URGENT***

**_HELLO?_ **

**_If ANYONE is seeing these please respond..._ ** **I**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for anyone reading! This was a grueling, but really fun and hype-inducing project to work on! I'm anticipating at least 2 more seasons of this series, but as I'm now working on my NaNoWriMo 2020 project and I have about 10 novels on the back-burner, it's probably not going to continue until spring. That being said, I hope you stay tuned! I have put a lot of time and love into this series and I'm hoping that others will be able to enjoy it too. Thanks for reading! Stay Safe. :)


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